This week Wyatt continued his study of community helpers. Just to recap; a community helper can be defined as any person who helps with our health and overall well-being. As Wyatt discovered last week, community helpers are not just firemen, police or doctors. They can be farmers who bring us good nutritious food to eat, sanitation workers who take away our trash and recycle our recyclables and even construction workers who build us new homes, schools and roads. In week one of community helpers Wyatt visited the grocery store and the veterinarian. You can read all about those adventures here. Wyatt could hardly wait for week two of community helpers as he was well aware of where he was going on Friday but first he visited some other community helpers in our city.
Bank – Wyatt previously had the joy of meeting Leila, the banker and was eagerly looking forward to seeing her again. (He might have a little crush on her!). Upon entering the bank Wyatt saw that Leila was not in her office so his teachers guided him on how to ask the tellers if she was available. Leila came out and helped Wyatt count his money, taught him how to fill out a deposit slip and make the deposit. She also encouraged him to save his money. In this lesson Wyatt unknowingly was practicing pragmatic speech, social skills, handwriting, math and even money management.
Post Office – As Wyatt has no abductor muscles in his hands, handwriting will always be difficult for him. Miss Kelly is working with him to learn Keyboarding Without Tears since typing will eventually be his go-to form of silent communication. She incorporated this program into one of Wyatt’s community helper visits by having Wyatt type a letter to his friend AC. They then took the letter to the post office to be mailed. Wyatt is eagerly awaiting a response! We are hopeful this will have kickstarted a pen pal friendship where the two friends can practice handwriting, keyboarding, reading comprehension, social skills (thinking about thoughtful questions you could ask the other person) and executive functioning skills such as organizing thoughts and planning through letter writing.
Fire Station – This was probably Wyatt’s favorite community helper visit. The firefighters welcomed Wyatt with open arms and were eager to share all that they do with Wyatt. Wyatt saw where the firefighters sleep, where they eat, he checked out all sorts of things on the fire truck, they showed him some of the tools they use in firefighting and emergency medical services and how they work. He also got to try on one of the firefighters coats which was bigger than he is! We live in a large equestrian community and apparently horse rescue is part of the firefighters job – who knew?! They even have a life sized dummy horse they practice horse rescue on. The highlight of Wyatt’s trip was getting to spray the fire hose! On Monday Wyatt and his teachers returned to the fire station to bring a thank you gift of chocolate chip cookies we had made for them. The firefighters asked more in depth questions about Wyatt’s situation and what Cornerstone Prep is about. They told Wyatt “Even firefighters need to know how to read” and encouraged Wyatt and his teachers to return so Wyatt could read to them and they could read to Wyatt. They even offered to do math and spelling with him too! WOW! My heart is so happy for all the opportunities that have been afforded Wyatt in just one community helper visit. I always knew firefighters were special people but this is above and beyond my expectations – I wonder if they know how much of an impact they had on one little boy? Wyatt spoke of nothing but his friends, the firefighters for a week. He is super excited to return!
