Students in Carrie McKain’s BOCES 6:1:1 class put their fine motor skills to work cutting fabric, adding stuffing and tying knots to make neck pillows for residents of a local nursing home. The class worked diligently from April to June, creating a total of 40 pillows out of two different patterns of fabric.
Three students, Jackson Kieffer, Damien Lupiani and Noah Maxwell, then hand-delivered the pillows to seniors at Lakeside Beikirch Care Center on June 16. Residents’ faces lit up as the boys took turns offering them a choice of pillow. The director of recreation and volunteers at Lakeside said the residents love when people come to visit.
Teacher Carrie McKain said experiences such as these are great ways to integrate content and skills learned in the classroom with the real world.
“We want our students to realize that there is a very big world out there and when we look outside ourselves, it opens doors to limitless opportunities to connect with others and grow these skills to be a better ‘us’,” said McKain.
She said in addition to practicing appropriate questioning, patience and turn taking, trips such as these also teach the students the importance of empathy and giving to others. The lesson was learned well, as evident by student Jackson Kieffer’s response when questioned about the goal of experience: “to make people happy.”
Thank you to Karen Schuler (speech teacher) and Erin Sherwood (occupational therapist) for helping complete all the pillows and to Deb Brooks and Renate Rappold (student behavioral assistants) for assisting with the delivery process.
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