RSS 2.0 FeedJuly 8, 2010, Merrick Life
Celebrating special friends
A special education class makes fast friends with its first grade neighbors at Levy-Lakeside.
A special-needs class and a neighboring first-grade class at the Levy-Lakeside School celebrated their year-long friendship at an end-of-year party last month.
It was the school’s youngest partnership of classes thus far, said Joanne Savastano. She is the special education teacher behind the partnership. She has been working with kids with special needs for 35 years and is also a physical therapy assistant.
Ms. Savastano said the goal of the partnership is to start the kids early on learning valuable social skills. The two classes proved to be mutually beneficial to each other throughout the year. The five children in the special education class, for instance, grew a garden together and invited their friends in the neighboring class to experience the many scents and textures of the plants. In turn, the neighboring class enjoyed walking their new special friends to the bus every day after school.
At the end-of-year party, the two classes assembled outside and enjoyed ice cream and Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins together, as well as activities such as t-ball and playing with a giant parachute. Ms. Savastano then gathered the kids and their parents in the classroom. They viewed a slide show of pictures showing the two classes interacting throughout the year.
The song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” played during the slide show presentation. The lyrics mirrored the accomplished goal of the two classes’ partnership: “You’ve got troubles, well I’ve got ‘em too/ There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you/ We stick together, and we see it through, You’ve got a friend in me.”