Saturday-Tuesday 13 October 2012 Breakfast, Visiting the Farm, and School Visits
Bec and
Cruz picked me up at 10:30 for brunch with some girls from school. We ate at
'Cafe 57' - it was delicious!
After brunch, Cathy dropped me off at Anne-Marie and Stat's
house.
I went
with their people to a beautiful beach house and farm on Coronet Bay where
Stat's parents live. We played with three week old goats, cuddled up baby
chooks, and giggled at a pig and a ram who found their niche with the bulls.
Elsie
and Tony live right on the beach - which meant sunsets and stargazing and
shells!
I brought home lots!
Anne-Marie and the kids dropped me off at home at about 4:15.
Bob brought me back to the Nunawading train station and I caught a train to
Southern Cross. I bought a ticket to Traralgon. Other than the train being a
half hour late, it was a fine trip.
Melissa
and Jill picked me up from the station and we went pretty much straight to
sleep. The next day I headed to school with Melissa. Her school is a similar
size to mine, but with a much higher poverty rate, and it's pretty far out in
the country. I floated around to a few classrooms, ending in a 1/2 room and
getting to watch a wonderful Ballet/Magic performance by a few of the girls in
the class. It was quite awesome.
Melissa and Jill dropped me off at the train station, and I
had to say goodbye to Melissa! It was so sad, but at least we got to have a bit
of a farewell!
Once I got home, Monday was my night to pack up everything!
I had to get stuff ready for camp!
Tuesday morning, Kevin, my supervisor, picked me up to -
Cathy is
awesome!!
(That's where Cathy got my blog notebook and added something of
her own to it)
Anyway, Kevin picked me up to take me to an primary school
designed specifically for kids with Autism, called Wantirna Heights. It was
absolutely fantastic! I spent the day in the class of a teacher named Shari.
She was absolutely fantastic! Throughout the day I got to see a few different
classrooms of all different levels of behaviours and academics. At the school
there are about 90 kids, but some of the students are in what they call
Satellite classrooms. There are two classrooms at general primary schools where
Wantirna Heights has teachers working. ABC Primary School, for instance, has a
Wantirna Heights Teacher working there. Students from Wantirna Heights that are
nearly prepared for a general classroom experience are in that teacher's
classroom, and several students from ABC Primary School that need help with
behaviour or academics are also in the Satellite class.
Overall, it was wonderful, and I'm SO glad I went! I actually
exchanged emails with Shari, because she is very interested in visiting the
U.S. and experiencing its Special Education Programs.
Judy picked me up from Wantirna Heights and we went over to
Anne-Marie's for dinner. I got to meet the people who swapped houses with them
when they were gone for six weeks. I spent the evening playing ping-pong and other
games with the boys, and convincing them all to come visit us in Seattle area!
They may not actually make it all the way here, but we're thinking we should
just meet them in Hawaii! Perfect!
It
was rough to say goodbye to people - It was so wonderful to spend time with
them, though. After dinner, I went home to finish up preparing for camp!
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