A Walk in the Park

Well, today sure didn't end up to be just another walk in the park. It started out really good, then quickly took a turn for the worse. Darlene (one of the aides in the room) brings in her golden retriever every Wed. to work with the kids. He is being trained as a service dog. The kids usually read a story to him or just sit and pet him. Anyway, today we thought since it was such a nice day that we would take a walk with the kids and Ted E Bear (the dog). We take the kids out for walks every once in a while, but this was Ted's first time going. The first picture I have posted is with Rick and Ted. I work with Rick in the mornings. Rick is a very high functioning child on the Autism spectrum. But he is afraid of dogs. Ted has really helped with this. I couldn't believe it when Rick wanted to hold the leash! Truly amazing!! He wouldn't even go near Ted the first time he was brought into the room. Anyway, we take off on our nature walk. Pretty soon, Ian (who I work with in the afternoons) decides that he wants to hold the leash. Ian doesn't talk very much, but he can let you know when he wants something bad enough. Darlene was a little skeptical about letting Ian have complete control of the leash, but she let him in the end. Everything was fine, Ian was doing a great job, until Gage (another one of the kids along with us) threw a stick into the river. Did I mention that the path we are walking on is along the Yellow River? Anyway, the stick goes flying into the river, Ian lets go of the leash, and Ted goes leaping into the river after the stick! Oh did he ever have fun swimming around in the river! We were starting to panic though because he was totally ignoring Darlene and would not get out of the water. He finally came out and we proceeded on our walk. We really should have turned around right then, but we were not very wise. The fourth boy that we had along with us was Travis. He also does not speak. When we started out on the walk he was finishing up with his listening therapy. He listens to special music Cd's. His CD player is in a little backpack that he carries on his back. The headphones are special headphones and cost over $100. Anyway...he was done with the listening therapy, and was just walking with his backpack on. He had been throwing little pebbles in the water, along with sticks back when Ted went for a swim. I guess he figured that since we were no longer allowing them to throw sticks that he would throw his backpack. And he did...right into the river! It got caught in some twigs... in the river... along the bank. It was a very steep slope so we ended up making a human chain to retrieve the backpack. It took three of us and a very long stick to get it out of the water. I don't know if the CD player will work or if the headphones are any good, but we are going to try and salvage them. We had some good laughs, so I guess when it was all said and done, it wasn't such a horrible day! I don't think we will be taking anymore walks until next school year though! We have two more days left of school. Tomorrow we have field day in the morning and a talent show in the afternoon. Friday the whole school goes over to the park and we cook hot dogs and have a picnic for the last day of school! Until then...good night!

Rick with Ted E Bear

Travis with his listening therapy (before it took a swim)

Ian

Darlene trying to call Ted out of the river!

Gage in the classroom