Summertime Activities
For many families, the summer presents an interesting question. What do we do with our kids? Better yet, how do we keep our kids mentally and physically fit so that they’re ready for the upcoming school year? Sure the summer’s a time to relax and have fun, but it’s also a time for kids to build upon what they’ve learned in school. They have the freedom to venture out and learn things that can’t be taught inside a classroom. The space allows families to take a step back and open their minds toward new paths of development.
Perkins School for the Blind and affiliated experts offer creative suggestions to help kids who are blind, deafblind or visually impaired and their families make the most of the summer downtime.
Kelly Cote, supervisor of Perkins Outreach Short Courses, says activities can be twofold. Throughout the summer, Outreach offers courses like the Summer Sport and Fitness Program (July 31-Aug. 3 at Perkins Campus in Watertown) and a Space Exploration Program at the US Space and Rocket Center (Sept. 23-30 in Huntsville, Ala.). In between the excitement such programs can engender, families can make everyday activities fun and educational. Cote explained how to make a trip to the grocery store into a learning opportunity.
“I’ll do scavenger hunts for the kids at the store,” she said. “I’ll break them into teams and then when they go in, I’ll ask them what they hear and smell as soon as they walk in the door. Then they have to go looking for a certain type of fruit,” Cote explained, adding the process requires students to talk to store employees. “Practical experience within the community is very beneficial.”
Cote also says tasks around the house can become educational experiences for kids. Breaking down something like baking a cake can teach kids many valuable skills in the kitchen, which they wouldn’t otherwise be able to observe through sight. It’s also an opportunity for families to spend some quality time together.
Cote says she’s acquired many tricks up her sleeve along the way. She gets the most ideas when she slows down and sees what’s around her. “You can make almost any task into an activity,” she said.
Adaptive physical education teachers in Perkins Deafblind Program, Matt LaCortiglia and Mike Pecorella, say the same thing applies for physical activity. Yet instead of looking around the house, families can look to their unique child to see what skills they may already have and where their interests lie.
“You want the student to expand on whatever foundation of skills that they have to make them successful,” Pecorella said, amidst Perkins School for the Blind’s tactile-lined goalball court in the gymnasium.
Yet if you’re a younger athlete and not sure of your interests or skills, Pecorella says “try everything.”
For staff of organized sports and local community programs unfamiliar with instructing athletes who are blind, deafblind or visually impaired and may or may not have additional disabilities, LaCortiglia and Pecorella have some tips:
- Ensure the student’s in a safe environment.
- Clear all obstacles.
- Keep the area consistent.
- Describe action precisely.
- Ask the student if there are things they need that would help.
- Have the staff email flyers for the class or program beforehand so that the student can read them with screen-reading software and arrive prepared.
- Students should advocate for themselves. Sometimes staff don’t accommodate appropriately for a student who is visually impaired simply because they don’t know any better. A student who can communicate his or her needs will change that.
“The facility gains knowledge on instructing athletes who are visually impaired and the student learns to advocate for themselves on their needs and preferences.” Pecorella said. “Only good things can come out of it.”
This concept of self-advocating is also integral to a child’s independence. As Dr. Lauren Lieberman, founder of Camp Abilities in SUNY Brockport says, “You can train teachers; you can train parents, but the person with the visual impairment will always be in a situation, where they have to advocate for themselves.”
Parents and students can also access local community resources to gain ideas on how to stay active in the summer months. Websites like the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) offer examples. Also, families can look to people they know in the community for help identifying possible activities for their child.
“Contact your physical education teacher, orientation and mobility vision specialist, or the local parks and recreation department,” Pecorella said. “They may have resources to narrow down your search for activities. A lot of the commissions for the blind in each state might know of a goalball team or beep baseball team that practices in the area.” Goalball and beep baseball are both games adapted for the visually impaired. They involve the use of a ball equipped with a sound-making device (like a bell or electronic beeper) so that players can locate the ball without seeing it.
Games like goalball or beep baseball can require special equipment that may be hard to make with everyday items. If that’s the case, Dr. Lauren Lieberman, PhD, founder of Camp Abilities in SUNY Brockport, suggests specialized equipment that can be ordered online. The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) offers equipment like an adapted jump rope fitness kit, which comes with a mat for shock absorption and defines a space for a kid who is blind or visually impaired to jump. They have everything from beep baseballs and goalballs to an adapted running kit, which kids can navigate along a rope, at APH’s online store.
Camp Abilities operates under the mindset that kids who are visually impaired can do anything a sighted person can do; it may just take a little more practice.
“Kids get better at sports and skills, when they can just pick it up and do it,” Lieberman said. “Keeping a lot of equipment around the house just lends itself to higher athletic skills.”
With all children, having the necessary equipment at home encourages practice, which in turn makes them better. Getting better inspires confidence, all the while getting children in shape and occupying time constructively. Lieberman has even collaborated with Eelke Folmer, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Nevada in Reno, who is blazing the trail into accessible Wii Fit video games, or VI Fit. “VI” stands for visually impaired. Read more on that in the Spotlight.
You can find more ideas from Lieberman and co-author Haley Shedlin’s book, Sports for Everyone, which contains comprehensive information on developing a local Camp Abilities.
Throughout the summer, while children are encouraged to engage in physical activity, they can also stimulate their minds. To keep the brain in shape, Massachusetts offers a statewide summer reading program. This year’s theme is “One World, Many Stories.” Students who are blind or visually impaired can keep up on their summer reading at Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library (BTBL).
BTBL Librarian Rachel Gould says the library has assembled a bibliography of braille, large print and talking book suggestions for this year’s theme. If a student reads for over 12 hours this summer, they can enter a drawing to win a Kindle e-reader.
“In the past we’ve always recorded the number of books,” Gould said. “To make it a little more fair, we’re recording hours this year. If someone’s just learning braille, it may take them longer to read a book.”
For schools which issue a stringent book list, the BTBL works with students to find those books in the required format.
“If we don’t have the book you need, we’ll find it for you.” Gould said. “But we almost always have the book.”
When a young bookworm has completed thier reading for the day, the BTBL offers several options to venture out as well. The library offers museum passes and acts as a reference for accessible movie theaters, which can be invaluable for a fun and educational summer outing. The featured passes focus on institutions catering to BTBL members (e.g. they have accessible exhibits like braille programs or tactile tours) and offer significant savings to places like the New England Aquarium, which encourages a hands-on experience in the world of water. New to the list this year is a tour of the USS Constitution Museum (aboard “Old Ironsides”).
The BTBL also acts a resource for accessible programming that families can tap into locally. Consult the BTBL for local theaters that show audio-described movies or films with rear-window captioning, a personal closed-captioning service which the patron sets up on the seat in front of them to receive an LED projection of text.
Click on BTBL services, for a full list of all the Perkins library has to offer. Follow the BTBL on Twitter @PerkinsBTBL.
As we make our way back to school in September, remember: these are just a few of the many things that can occupy kids during the otherwise lazy days of summer. As all kids have varying abilities, interests and access to the multitude of activity summer has to offer, so too will the schedule families formulate. They don’t have to get bogged down so much by what to fill the summer calendar with. Instead, families can take the time to reassess how their children develop throughout everyday activities—physical exercise, trips to the grocery store, settling into a braille or audio book, venturing out and rethinking a world that's now full of possibility for experience. Yet no matter how families enjoy the summer, it will be time well-spent having fun together!
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