My Son’s #SpecialOlympics Day was Special for #Mom Too!

About a month before the end of school, a Special Olympics day was held in town. I didn’t know what to expect but I was really excited…probably more than I should have been, but it was the first time my son and I got to attend with his class because he had been in IBI therapy for previous years.

I was amazed at the sheer number of children and schools that were in attendance. My son is fortunate to be in an Autism-specific class so my man and I met them at the school that was hosting the event. It was hard to find parking! None of the spots in the school’s parking lot were available so we had to park a few blocks away. We found my son’s class, under a little pop-up sunshade. Apparently all other students were gathered in the school’s auditorium for Opening Ceremonies. With the hundreds of children, personally, I think my son’s class was smart NOT going in there!

Soon, we heard bagpipes as all the students were starting to file out of the school to the field.

Each of the children had “passports” to get stickers at each activity. Needless to say, the kids loved choosing stickers for each one!

One of the activities was a race for each class. The volunteers overseeing the race lined all my son’s class and explained that they will count to three then everyone run. They counted down, and all the kids ran…past the finish line and all the staff and parents started chuckling…no one had told our kiddos to stop at the finish line, so they just kept on running! LOL! The volunteers ran after them and told them all to stop. It was so cute!

There was also beanbag toss, “javelin” (with a pool noodle) and ball throw:

I was amazed at the shear numbers of children, and everyone’s different abilities, both visible and invisible to the eye. It was wonderful to see all the helpers (both school staff and volunteers for the day) supporting all these children to have fun for the day.

A quick shout out to my son’s amazing teacher…I LOVE this picture of her with one of my son’s friends. I think it perfectly shows how much she loves her job, and her kindness towards our kiddos. I wish I could clone her for EVERY single one of our kiddos on the Autism Spectrum!

 

List of #Summer Activities

 

Happy first day of summer!

 

Summer has hit us hard here. We’re currently in day 3 of a heat advisory. Today’s forecast is 33 degrees Celsius (92 degrees Fahrenheit) with a humidex that will make it feel closer to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). Needless to say, all our Canadian igloos melted days ago…ha!

 

Recently, I blogged about trying to get organized to get crafty and have activity ideas readily accessible (so I don’t have to think), so I thought I would share our list, compiled by Googling “summer activities” and asking on Facebook mom groups what everyone is up to over the summer. Here are some of the things the kids and I will be doing this summer:

• Make homemade ice cream in a bag
• Make homemade popsicles
• Ride bikes outside
• Make a “Park Passport” and check each park off as we visit new ones
• Wrap a piece a duct tape around wrist with sticky side up. Take a walk around the neighborhood and stick leaves, small pebbles, sticks, and other treasures onto duct tape bracelet
• Paint the sidewalk with water
• Washand detail the car (get ready for a water fight!)
• Make a bird feeder
• Go to the splashpad
• Go on an “Alphabet tour”: go for a walk with camera & notebook, and beginning with the letter “a”, find something that starts with that letter (i.e.Adams Street). Take a picture & write it in your notebook. Continue with each letter. Each child has a personal and creative alphabet memory book for the summer.
• Go to a local pond and record items, animals and plants you see
• Go to a Farmer’s Market
• Play with a Hula-Hoop
• Go on a picnic
• Collect rocks and paint them; make them into Rock People
• Go to the library
• Go to the beach
• Pick some flowers
• Draw with chalk on the sidewalk
• Blow bubbles
• Go swimming
• Water balloon fight
• Play Frisbee
• Play soccer
• Play baseball
• Build a sandcastle
• Lie down on the grass and find shapes in the clouds

 

I have printed these activities on a label template, and put them in our Summer Box.

 

What are you going to do with the kids this summer?

 

Trying to get organized to become #crafty

Last week, I mentioned I had created lists for crafts and activities to do with the kids. I’m not a crafty person but honestly, Pinterest has actually inspired me to think I may be able to handle some crafts. Even bought my first container of Mod Podge (was a bit thrown off that there are different types, but I’ll fumble my way through)! So, if I show any crafts here, I can guarantee you that anyone can do them!

I wanted to have pretty containers for my lists of crafts and activities so the kids and I went to the dollar store and found 4 boxes we liked (ok, I liked…my daughter picked out some really brightly coloured ones with a very strange pattern – I just couldn’t imagine myself looking at them all the time).  We bought:

• 4 same-sized boxes
• scrapbooking paper (as a non-scrapbooker, of course I don’t have any at home)
• 2 pages of letter stickers to make sure I had enough letters for all the words I was going to use (I actually had some letter stickers, but in colours that didn’t match the boxes)

I traced the green side of a box that showed under the lid onto the black paper and cut it out. Then I just eyeballed to make it smaller than the side of the box (see, really technical here!), and cut the paper smaller.

I went to add the word “summer” to the paper for that box and encountered a bit of a problem before I even stuck the letter stickers. I have really good spatial awareness, so I realized that they were too big to fit horizontally across the paper. I stood there and looked at the letters, then the paper, back to the letters, back to the paper, cursed the “M” for being so wide, especially when I needed to use two for the word “summer”.  Took me a few minutes (ok, closer to 10 minutes, but I’m new to this!) for me to realize I could put the words on diagonally. So, that’s what I did.

(You would think I would have taken pictures of the word “Summer” in progress, alas, I did not. And clearly I need a better camera…any sponsors? Am willing to test out different ones…hint, hint!)

Then I repeated the same process for all 4 words I’m using to classify the lists: Summer, Rainy, Crafts, Winter.

Then I taped these “cards” onto the four boxes, and voila! I actually did a “craft” of some kind.

Rained Out Weekend, So I Created Kid-Related Lists

 

Mother Nature and I were at odds on the weekend. My original plans included going to local parks, nature walks looking for bugs and insects, a playdate, and going to the outdoor farmer’s market, etc. Basically, being outside most of the weekend. Alas, the rain spoiled that fun. Instead, we had a different playdate as our original one had to reschedule because of illness, going to the library, lots of tickle fights, computer games, iPad time, popcorn and a movie, and some colouring.

 

I’ll admit that I get very frustrated when Mother Nature foils my plans, primarily because I seem to have missed that class that most (all?) moms have taken where they can instantly come up with crafts to keep the kids happy and busy.

 

So, I also took advantage of the lazy, indoor weekend and started some lists. What can I say? I may be a SAHM, but I used to work out of the home, in an organizing role…lists are my life!  The lists I’ve now started are:

• Summer activities
• Rainy day activities
• Crafts
• Activities to do with other kids
• Winter activities

 

I have compiled them from many sources I found online, with Google, Pinterest and also some personal moms groups on Facebook. For the record, considering we’re 4 – 5 months from winter showing its ugly head again, it’s a lower priority than the other lists.

 

I’ve created the lists as label templates so I can cut them and put them in boxes, labeled appropriately. Stay tuned for how I actually created the boxes and the labels.