I LEARNED IT IN KINDERGARTEN!: Grace's Visit

The 2013 billboard for National Down Syndrome Awareness Week

This past week (November 1^st to 7^th) was National Down Syndrome Awareness Week (NDSAW). The aim of this public awareness campaign titled See the Ability, is to focus on the strengths and abilities of people with Down syndrome. This is the campaign’s third year.

Grace

Grace is a student at our school who has Down syndrome. This week Grace and her teacher Ms. Ferrari visited our class to talk about Grace’s interests, abilities, and Down syndrome. The visit was very successful. The kindergarten students enjoyed asking Grace questions about her favourite colour, food, and hobbies. Grace did an amazing job speaking to the kindergarten students about her interests.

As a follow-up to Grace’s visit, the kindergarten students watched a short YouTube video titled Everyone Counts: My Friend Isabelle. Based on a children’s book by Eliza Woloson, the video teaches acceptance and inclusion through Charlie and his friend Isabelle.

After the video the kindergarten students discussed how Isabelle and Charlie are the same, and how they are different. One student made a connection to flowers. The boy said all flowers smell nice and grow, but they don’t all look the same, they have different colours and petal shapes. What an amazing connection!

As a symbol of Grace’s visit, the students created flowers using coffee filters, markers, water, glitter and tissue paper. The flowers are now on display in our classroom. Next week we will invite Grace to see the beautiful flowers that she inspired the kindergarten students to create.