This post is going to be so short that I debated if I should even write it. Looking back at things that have happened over the past month, the only two highlights worth sharing are Halloween and school.
Like most years, we didn’t go trick or treating. It’s usually too cold for James to be outside for too long which is why we normally don’t take him trick or treating around the neighborhood. This year in addition to the cold, we had snow. Not a lot, maybe half an inch or so, but it made it feel more like Thanksgiving or Christmas than Halloween. We weren’t the only ones that skipped trick or treating this year—we had very few trick or treaters stop at our house. We have enough candy left over that it will probably take us months to eat it all.
At least James got to semi-dress up for Halloween at school. All of his classmates, teachers, and aides wore ghost shirts.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but James’ high school experience is much different than the “normal” kids. Where a normal student will go from classroom to classroom throughout the day and learn about different subjects like math, English, science, foreign language, etc., James’ class is pretty self-contained. Most of their learning is done in the same classroom.
They still learn various subjects, but they also spend quite a bit of time learning life skills. They have a kitchen in their classroom where they learn to read a cookbook, measure out ingredients, safely operate an oven and stove, and make food items. There have been a couple of times so far this year that James has come home with food that they made in class. There were some cookies that were a little burnt on the bottom, but they were still good. And hey, they’re learning, right?
They’ve also gone on a couple of field trips to stores and to the mall to learn how to shop, how to read prices, and how to pay for items they want to buy. Here are a few pictures from the shopping trip they took for Halloween items:
Another field trip they took was to do some fishing at the small lake behind the school. Sadly, I don’t think he caught anything.
Like I said, this was a pretty short post. Maybe I will have more to share next month. James has an appointment coming up with the craniofacial team at UIC, so I will hopefully have some good news to share about that.
