(05/04/10) Lincoln Piedmont Elementary School, Duluth, MN

5/4/2010 Outreach Visit to Lincoln Piedmont Elementary School in Duluth, MN by Paula Moore

“How did the person take a picture of WindChill up in Heaven? Olivia and Walker aren’t dead too, are they?” asked one very concerned young man when Deb’s painting of WindChill, Olivia, and Walker came up on the screen. I explained to him that that was how the painter thought the three friends would look like in her mind when they meet again up in Heaven.

The picture he talked about is the picture we use on the front of the children’s WOW brochures. It is always a favorite of the kids. It is also a favorite of mine because when taking care of WindChill, I often had Walker and Olivia with me. I wrote a very emotional letter to Deb when I first saw that painting and wrote how much that painting moves me and touches my heart.)

That was just one of many comments that showed us how insightful special education kids can be. This was our third visit to a classroom at Lincoln Piedmont Elementary.

The class of 3^rd and 4^th graders with cognitive disabilities represented their school well. What a wonderful enthusiastic, well mannered group.

Their teacher left the school for an emergency 15 minutes before our presentation. She stayed long enough to beg us to go through with the outreach with only a teacher assistant there to supervise. We could have said sorry we can’t do it, but one look at the eager students’ faces made us stay. We did not regret that decision.

These students may have a cognitive disability but it sure did not stop them from amazing us with their understanding of WindChill’s story. They raised their hands to ask good questions about each picture of WindChill.

After meeting with the teacher 2 weeks ahead of time, she and I chose to go with a more advanced program. This program is about 35 minutes long so the attention span has to be there. The students did a great job of staying with me. The stickers Gramma Carole handed out to them for answering my questions brought enormous grins.

The teacher had prepared her students well. She took both of the Pre-school-K and the 1st-3^rd grade activity notebooks, notebooks that go with each outreach. I was happy to see she used both of them- a lot!!! On each of the students’ desks was a folder of 2 horse math worksheets. (Ann Labelle found this wonderful website with K-5^th grade practical hands on math that uses pictures of horses and items associated with horses for adding and subtraction plus everyday math problems faced by farms and ranches.) Also in the folder were writing exercises and horse coloring pictures, all copied from the WindChill Legacy teacher activity notebooks. Each child wore a horse nametag they cut out from patterns that were also in the activity notebook.

Before she left, she also showed me how over the next 2 weeks, she would be using other activities from the teacher activity notebooks. She also had one of the recommended movies, Spirit, from the list of movies Gramma Carole had researched and include in the notebooks.

The teacher was thrilled to have so many activities and books for her kids to work on. She said that most presenters to do not have follow-up materials, let alone materials to give 2 weeks in advance. She did not have to really say how appreciative she was—just showing me the many ways she planned to use these was a great compliment.

Many of the students had pets that died. They really talked about them with hearts wide open, still registering so much pain. They felt just I like did about WindChill and my pets. They were very sincere and I was able to be very honest with them. Gramma Carole had tears in her eyes and told them about the recent loss of her kitty.

“Why is that white thing on WindChill’s face?”(halter with soft cotton)

“How do you take a picture with your mind?” (I tell the kids to do that if they see an animal who is injured, needing help, or being abused and then run home to tell a parent all the details.) I closed my eyes, turned my back and described what he was wearing. The boy was impressed.

One girl had lots of horse knowledge. Her parents own 2 horses and she rides a lot.

After the power point presentation it was time to introduce Magic, the mini horse, to Magic, the 10 year old boy. In this class there was a boy with his first name Magic and his last name just happened to be WindChill’s best dog friend. What a coincidence!!!!!!!

The excitement and the grins from ear to ear when Magic came in were contagious. One girl said,” What a pretty horse! What tiny feet she has.” The girl next to her said, “Gorgeous. She’s a super star!”

One girl had trouble reaching Magic. Magic instinctively stretched her neck really long so the girl could pet her.

There was 1 young girl who did not have the boundary control like the other kids. I had to step in a quite a bit and finally just stood by her while Magic was in the room. This girl was fascinated with Magic’s tail and eyes.

Kathi was impressed how the students helped each other and treated each other with respect.

The boy, Magic, asked if he could take mini Magic home on the bus with him. Kathi said sure and put Magic’s lead rope over his shoulder. He was a bit shaken at first. His eyes were big as saucers… but when he realized Magic was just standing very still, he puffed up his chest and enjoyed the moment—which lasted about 10 minutes. All the kids gathered around Magic and this boy who had the lead rope and pictures were taken. There is no doubt who was the happiest in that photo.

I got the teacher assistant to have his picture taken with Magic. All the kids chimed in with an exaggerated chorus of ‘”Oh Jack, sooooooooo cute. “

There was so much love pouring forth from these kids that I did not want it to end. This outreach was truly a joy for me—to be back in a Special Ed classroom and working with these great kids.

I asked Kathi if it was ok for the kids to follow Magic out in the hall and outside to the door to her trailer. They wanted to see Magic’s dressing room with her refrigerator, stove, bathroom, lounging couch……after Kathi’s description of the inside of the trailer when asked by one young fellow, “Why couldn’t Magic just come by car? She could look out and see where she was going.” He felt bad that Magic had to take such a long ride in a trailer. He thought she should ride in a car with windows for her to look out of.

They watched her eat grass and dandelions. Magic did a good job of diminishing the dandelion population on that lawn. The janitor wanted us to bring our cute friendly mini lawn mower more often.

Magic made her leap into the trailer. During this time I had a hold of the young girl who did not have boundaries around Magic. The assistant had his hands full with the others so I stayed right by her and talked to her. She got cold so I put my arms around her to keep her warm and that went ok.

Kathi gave the kids one more treat. She opened up the side door of the trailer to show them how the cutest head could pop out for a Kodak moment. So many pictures were taken. Cameras could not keep up.

We felt so good. We were the ones smiling and feeling overjoyed. There was so much good interaction between the students, myself, Kathi, Carole, Trish and Magic.

I walked back with the girl I supervised, and the rest of the group to the classroom. I put my equipment away.

When I was leaving, the kids were out at their lockers. I said goodbye to them and started walking down the hall. I turned and waved. Magic, the boy, comes running and gives me a big hug. Soon others followed. It feels so good to have made that safe connection.

They told me to come back to look at their lockers. They had already put WindChill’s magnet  up in their lockers. One girl said, “Now I can think of WindChill every day.”