Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Special Olympics of NJ Spring Festival

This past weekend, the Special Olympics of NJ hosted their annual Spring Sports Festival in Wildwood, NJ.  Last year was the first year that we attended so that Colin could participate in the Young Athlete Program and had such a great time that we signed up to go back again this year.  It's a bit of a drive to Wildwood, but we thought we could make a day out of attending the events and then hitting up a great zoo in the area.  Unfortunately, the weather put a damper on those plans, but we still had a great time at the event.  
 
 
The session was approximately 45 minutes long and Colin and Kailey both did a great job at following directions during some of the activities and free play.  There are times that Colin decides he'd rather do his own thing, but we try to keep him on task because in school, this is what he needs to do a lot of the time (and one area he can struggle with).  


 
One area that Colin has really excelled in lately is with his gross motor skills and he really enjoys participating in sports related activities.  The only downside is that Colin does tire more easily than other kids (Kailey included) so when he has reached his limit, you will often find him sitting down to take a break, or he will decide that he is just done and "doesn't want to" participate any longer.  He typically has a solid 30 minutes in him and you can usually tell when this time is up because his internal timer must go off and he will sit down. 

 
One of the activities that Miss Andrea had the kids participate in was a relay activity where they had to hold a basketball, jump over 3 bars set up, bounce the basketball in 3 different hoops a certain amount of times depending on the number in the ring and then run back to tag their partner.  

 
Being the typical Mother Hen that I am, I found myself hovering during the activity directing Colin at certain points because I wanted to make sure he was following directions the correct way.  However, I realized that Colin was being really attentive to Miss Andrea and actually following HER directions, that I backed up.  I have to remind myself sometimes that Colin doesn't always need me butting in to help him.  I got a video of the very end (I missed the great part in the beginning where Colin jumped over the bars holding the basketball and did awesome!).  At the end of the video, you even hear me giving instructions when Miss Andrea is already doing so.  I'm learning! 
 

 
 

 
When we were done with the Young Athlete Program, we grabbed some lunch and then went to cheer on some of the teams that were playing basketball in their tournament.  The kids had a great time and were really supportive!


 
We have some REALLY exciting events coming up with the Special Olympics in May and June that I can't wait to chat about!

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