APE (Adaptive Physical Education) Lessons Added to Our Site (NEW)

Adaptive Physical Education is critical for health and wellness. New this week is the addition of links for families to encourage health and wellness for their child or children at home.

Why is APE important? Fundamental skills such as throwing catching running and walking all children with Autism to benefit from exercise, and learn the fundamentals that provide a lifetime of experiences that are inclusive of participation in adult recreational activities with their peers.

Additionally, research has shown that diet and exercise provide positive outcomes including self-regulation skills that are critical to functional living. Check out the links and send us your recommendations that would encourage a healthy lifestyle for children with disabilities
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New - Outdoor Activities for Children

The weather is getting nice out. This is a great opportunity to get the kids outdoors and ready to learn.  A new link for parents and teachers will focus on outdoor education. We have added a link to our site for outdoor recreation ideas. There are 7 benefits to outdoor education listed below that guide this practice:

1. Learning
Playing outside helps children to develop their learning abilities. By putting educational equipment outdoors, children are soon learning through play, which is a fun way of helping children to learn new information and skills. As well as this, outdoor learning encourages children to think of learning is an ongoing process instead of just something done in the classroom.

2. Creativity
Outdoor play is great for encouraging children’s creativity. Away from the constraints and confinement of indoor play, being outside children’s imaginations are often stimulated by the objects around them and they quickly tap into their creativity.

3. Health
There are numerous health benefits to playing outside. With more room to play in, children are often more active when outside, which helps them to build strong bones and good fitness levels, while also enabling them to burn off extra energy and calories. As well as this, being in the sunshine, even in winter, means children naturally absorb vital vitamin D, a lack of which can lead to Rickets.

4. Social skills
As outdoor spaces are usually less crowded than indoors, it is less intimidating and helps children to naturally come out of their shells and be more social. This means that children will be more willing to join in games and activities, while they will also be more likely to talk to different children and make new friends. This all encourages children to learn social skills and how to interact with other children away from adult supervision.

5. Well-being
Giving children the freedom of playing outdoor helps them to feel happier and calmer. As already stated, being outside means that children naturally get vitamin D, which is proven to help improve moods and create a positive mental attitude. The freedom outdoor play also encourages children to get rid of built-up energy, particularly if they tend to be fidgety when sitting for long periods of time, this leads to them becoming calmer and ultimately helps them to be more focused when in the classroom.

6. Independence
The large space in which to play means that when outside children are often away from direct adult supervision. This helps them to learn independence when socially interacting with other children, as well as learning to play by themselves. They learn how to take turns playing games, to pick themselves up then they fall, and how to negotiate unfamiliar equipment, resulting in children learning how to be independent and self-reliant.

7. Explore
Often outdoor play equipment has a little more risk than indoor toys. Whether it is encouraging children to use slides they might be a little afraid to go down, or to try challenging play trails; outdoor play equipment can help children to learn to push their boundaries and become good at risk assessment. It also teaches them to explore new games and become confident in learning to try new things without being guided by adults.

Lesson for Home - Daily Lessons for Parents as Educators

Exciting News! We are adding lessons daily for parents and professionals to use that incorporate Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis strategies. We are going to incorporate our model into the planning so parents can reinforce some of the techniques children are learning at school at Upstate Cerebral Palsy.

Welcome Parents and Educational Professionals from New Discoveries and Tradewinds

I would like to welcome everyone to this online resource for parents and education professionals to use over the break. The purpose of this resource is to help families keep their children engaged in the educational process while working with our Teachers, Therapists, and Clinicians on their IEP goals. 

The links on this blog are interactive and fun. Parents will find the content to be a great resource for their children. The educational staff at New Discoveries and Tradewinds may use this to enhance their current lesson plans. They will let you know through their virtual classroom assignments. 

Our goal is to maintain the highest level of communication during the Spring Break. If you would like to give us feedback or provide instructional links that you found to be fun and engaging, email Lenny Giardino @lenny.giardino@upstatecp.org. I am the Superintendent of Schools and will be checking my email daily. 

COVID 19 Update

We have updated our site to support families and education professionals. New resources can be found in most categories. If you have sites your would like to recommend, please feel free to message us in the comments section.

ICIVICS - Return to Civility

ICIVICS.ORG is a website dedicated to Civics. Civics was once a required class in public schools. It disappeared as Education Reform erased the importance of students learning their responsibilities as citizens in a republic.

Civics teaches students the aspects of government. Most importantly, the role of civics classes was to teach future citizens the importance of the integrity of government systems. Participation by citizens guarantee checks and balances to our government.

Another aspect of citizenship is the integrity of reporting. Journalism, as discussed in the Bill of Rights plays an important aspect in holding our government accountable to the citizens. Without journalistic integrity, elections can be manipulated. Voters become disenfranchised, and then we become witness to low voter turnout.

ICIVICS wants to change the current apathy about citizenship. It is a clever site. Tapping into the current RPG gaming environment most familiar to today's learners, it is a very engaging. Students choose an avatar and engage in daily civic lessons. Relevant, and current, students will be immersed into today's current problems with citizenry. For example, fake news is examined as one part of the game. A very clever lesson in vetting sources. A challenging world of determining what is truth, and the skills necessary to filter the news.

Judicial law, branches of government and learning how local government works are just some of the offerings. This is a great site, that should be required learning in middle/high schools across the United States. For now, it is up to parents/educators to discover the site. Hopefully, with time we can impact future generations. Without lessons in civics, we have political ads that are deceitful, cynicism and low confidence in our system of government. This is why ICIVICS is so important. A valiant online attempt to education our youth about the systems of government and how they work.

NEW - Early Childhood Professional Development - Parents and Teachers and Paraprofessionals

Early Childhood development is the key to a lifetime of positive outcomes. Our page is dedicated to helping people in our community connect to valuable resources. For this reason, we have added a professional development section to our blog. This section will connect Early Childhood education majors to local, state, and national resources.


We already have a section for Early Childhood software and connections to learning sites. This in combination of our new links for professional development help strengthen our connection to positive outcomes for children. Feel free to check out our sites, and leave a comment if you have suggestions for future links that benefit our earliest of learners.