Shoot for the stars

Today Cassandra and I played basketball upstairs in park center. We started out just passing the ball back and forth to each other. I tried to get Cassandra to bounce with both hands, she was doing really well with that. After we mastered both hands i asked her to pick one hand to hit the ball with. Once she picked her favorite hand I gave her a high five with that hand just to reinforce which hand we were going to be using. Then we bounced the ball back and forth using the one hand. Our next step was to bounce the ball with the other hand. I realized that Cassandra would use which ever hand was closer to the ball, so if I wanted her to use her right hand i would bounce the ball to her right side, and same with the left. Once we were confident in our bouncing we started to try dribbling. I told her bounce the ball and take a step but that didn't seem to work so i switched the que's to walk and bounce. At first it took a little reminding but towards the end she was walking and dribbling the ball twice. It was really exciting to watch her progress so much in an hour. What I also noticed was that she was talking more, even though she mostly was repeating what I was saying it was still more talking then I have heard since we started. Since I am going on spring break next week I will not be meeting with her, but when i get back we will pick up right where we left off.

Art time

Today instead of going to dance Cassandra and I did art at the rec center. My roommate Emily came along with us because she has lots of art idea's and is very creative. When we got there Cassandra was really excited to see all the art supplies we had we found the biggest piece of paper and some paint and got to work. Once we sat down we got a little side tracked because Cassandra wanted to read the magazines on the table. I told her she could read one page then we would have to get started. After her reading was done Emily explained what we were going to do today. We were going to make self portraits, first we started out by cutting the shape of our face, then we painted on our eyes', ear's nose, and mouth. Then we added in some hair and colored in the background. We also found some stamps and ink pads, Cassandra really enjoyed the stamps. After the first project was done we moved on to another one. The second project was just to color on white paper, we found some markers and Cassandra made a rainbow. When we were all done we cleaned up our work space and put everything back where we found it and headed out. After saying goodbye and thank you to Emily we headed home. I really think Cassandra enjoyed the art we did today hopefully we can do it again another time. Tomorrow we are going to play basketball up at the school, which is one of Cassandra's favorite things to do.

dance with your shoes off :)

On March 2nd Cassandra and I met and we went again to the YMCA disabilities and dance. This time we did a lot of line dancing, these dances involved a lot of foot stomping and clapping. Cassandra really enjoyed the clapping and when we would all walk in one direction. It took a few prompts to get her to follow along but she got it and had a lot of fun. We also did the chicken dance and the maharajah. Cassandra really enjoyed these dances, she knew the chicken dance already and was really getting into it. I haven't seen her that excited and happy yet, it was really good to see her break out of her shell and be able to express herself. On the way home from the YMCA we listened to country and tapped along to the music. Over all it was another fun hour full of dancing and laughing, Next Wednesday the 9th I am taking Cassandra to meet with my roommate who is going to teach us how to make self portraits. I am really excited because i know Cassandra really enjoys art and maybe I can get to know another side of her.

Snow shoeing expedition

Today Cassandra and I went to Lime Hollow and went snow shoeing. At first it was a little difficult because this was my first time show shoeing, but the owner came out and helped us put the snow shoes on. Once we were all geared up we headed out to the field to practice walking around. After a few rounds in the field we decided to go out on the trails. We took the art trail which was a lot of fun, as we hiked we would stop and look at the art, there was a beautiful over look where we stopped and relaxed for a bit. After that we kept on going, we made a deal that once we reached the top of the hill we could turn around and start heading back. By the time we got to the top of the hill we were out of breath, but had enough energy to run back down. As we walked backed it was at a brisk pace, Cassandra was ready to head back to the lodge. Before we left we grabbed a brochure and on the way home Cassandra looked it over. We had a lot of fun today and I can't wait to see her tomorrow because we are going to the YMCA for the dance session again.