Saturday, August 2, 2008

Special Olympics "Young Athletes" Program

Matthew had his first session of the Young Athletes program today. This is a free program that meets for almost 3 hours every Saturday in August. (Today he only lasted 1.5 hours, but that's ok.) Matthew had a great start...he loved dancing to the warm up music and wasn't shy about going into the center of the circle.


Then the kids (who are aged 3 to 7 years) were broken into groups and sent to one of six stations: soccer, baseball, track, obstacle course, bowling, and basketball. Matthew refused to participate in the basketball corner and ran around the gymnasium instead (as did a few other "explorers"). He was a little more interested in bowling and absolutely LOVED the obstacle course.


A pretty volunteer tried to get him to play baseball, but it didn't last long b/c there are sliding glass doors outside the gym and those are Matthew's favorite thing to watch (open & close). He never made it to soccer (he was pretty overwhelmed by then).

We did stay for the parachute activity, and Matthew enjoyed running underneath it but got frustrated when it came down and the kids had to get out. So we waited for him to stop fussing, offered him juice, and said let's go home. We wanted to leave on a positive note so he'll be excited to go back next week. I think this 5 session "camp" will be really good for him b/c he's with a group of 20 kids (plus their parents/siblings & camp personnel) and is being introduced to sports/new physical activities. (P.S. You can click on the 3 pictures to make them bigger.)

7 comments:

B said...

the dancing is just adorable!
what a great program!!!
baby steps right?
He did great!!!

Casdok said...

I think for a first session Matthew did really well!
Sounds excellent.

Julee Huy said...

This is really neat! I like the sound of that program!

Anonymous said...

I know you have your hands full with your angel and I know that there are tons of other people I could talk to with similar stories, but something about your situation seems quite similar to mine... except I have TWO boys (well 3 but we CHOSE not to vaccinate the baby) with tendancies such as yours. One will be 4 next month and the other 3 in Oct. Can you email me since I dont know how to email you? jamerleigh@msn.com my name is JAMIE.

Anonymous said...

what a great program for Matthew. and what a cute dancer! =)

Cyndi said...

Hi Jamie, I just wanted to let you know that I sent you an email last night...hopefully it won't end up in your spam folder. :) Cyndi

GFCF Mommy said...

I think Matthew did really well. The program seems wonderful!

Katherine