Understanding our Disabilities Awareness

Every Friday, Julia brings home a "Reflections Journal" from school, detailing the important things she studied and learned that week.  My job, then, is to write a full-page response for her to read when she is back in school the following week.  (Is this a lot to ask a parent to do on a weekly basis?  Yes, it is.)  This past week, Julia wrote about the special school-wide unit called "Understanding our Disabilities Awareness" or "UDA." 

"Dear Mommy,
Thursday we had understanding our disabilities of awareness.  Mrs. Gibbons brought in some prostheithes.  We watched 3 videos, one about a girls who could'nt use her legs, a swimming event, and a video about a girls named Macy.  Then we walked to the preformence center to do the activitys.  My favorite was using the wheel chairs.  We learned that you should always think of the person first because people are'nt really disables, they can do anything we can do.  Doing this inspired me with some of the Mintz's friends, and I would really like to meet someone who has a different ability.  The two other groups were crutches, canes, and walkers and the other was something wrong with peoples arms.  I think this was my favorite diabilities of awarness program I've done yet!
Love,
Julia"


I am *so* glad that this unit inspired Julia to create some disabled characters for her imaginary family that she thinks about while galloping through the house.  After all, isn't that what this sort of a unit is for??