IDEA Project

I was super excited to volunteer at Kaitlyn's school last week. The IDEA project folks (interactive disability education awareness) were at her school. This program is a week-long learning event and starts off with a 40-minute, grade level-based assembly during which students discuss different abilities. They also participate in interactive group activities, and watch a short video. Lastly they cycle through activity stations that simulate different types of disabilities.

I was lucky enough to work on one of the activity stations that the kids cycled through. I led groups of 2nd graders, 4th graders, and 5th graders (Kaitlyn's class!). It was so fun to be at the school and be able to be a part of this. It's a really well done program and resonated with all the kids - they love it and learn a lot every year.  So thankful that I got the opportunity to be part of this (and that Kaitlyn still loves having me at her school!).

This was the activity station I was asked to run

Kids were asked to say out loud, each of the lines as
quickly as they could. They soon found that it wasn't an easy task
and that the brain can sometimes make things challenging for us. 

This second activity was really hard and made the kids think
a lot about how hard it is for someone who has a learning disability or
processing challenge. On this one, the kids were asked to say the color
of the word out loud, not the word...they really had to stop and think and
many times they still said the wrong color! Try it - it's hard!