As we embark on our 25th Anniversary year, we’d like to take a look at two of our former students, David and Alexis, and share their success stories.

Fall 2011 Cooke Center News: Volume 6 Issue 6

What’s Cooking?

The Cooke Center For Learning and Development

In this Issue: Cooke Alumni Success Stories

CCMS Club Day

CCA Urban Farm

Trip to the Transit Museum

Tsunami Foundation Gift

New SKILLs Building

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A Letter from Cooke President

Dear Parents and Friends, Recently an alumna called to catch up. She shared that she is married, the mother of two children, and a medical assistant. I was delighted to hear about her success and equally happy with her desire to reconnect with classmates and to help in any way she can. It reminded me that our Cooke Community is important while a student is with us, as well as long into the future. At our recent “Back to School Night,” parents happily reconnected with old friends and enthusiastically welcomed newcomers. This reminded me that the Cooke Community plays a critical role in the lives of our parents as well as our students. As we prepare for the celebration of our 25th anniversary, what we celebrate is the establishment and growth of a community of families, faculty and friends who come together to ensure that children with special needs have access to high quality education. Working together, we are changing the lives of the children we serve. Sincerely, Michael Termini, PsyD

David is a recent graduate of the SKILLs program. As part of his transition plan during his tenure at Cooke, David connected with Ken’s Krew, an organization which provides vocational training and job support services to individuals with developmental disabilities. In 2010, David began a part-time job at CVS, where he is responsible for managing store inventory. This is a position he thoroughly enjoys as it allows him the opportunity to flex his considerable muscle! David is also an active member of the Cooke Center Alumni Association. He especially enjoys getting down on the dance floor during the Annual Halloween Dance and Valentine’s Day Formal. He is looking forward to participating in many more alumni events in the future.

Cooke Alumni: Where Are They Now? A L o o k a t T w o o f C o o k e ’ s M a n y S u c c e s s f u l A l u m n i S t o r i e s

Since graduating from the Cooke Center Academy in 2009, Alexis has been busy exploring her interest in theatre. Her interest blossomed when she performed the roles of Mrs. Gulch and the Evil monkey in the Cooke Center Academy’s presentation of the Wizard of Oz in 2009. Recently she was cast as a Zombie in the Nicu Spoon Theatre’s production How the Day Runs Down. Alexis plans to continue to act and share her talents with the world. When she isn’t acting, Alexis is busy at her job at Whole Foods Market, where she is responsible for managing inventory on the store floor. Alexis credits the Transition Team at CCA with connecting her with ACCES-VR (formerly VESID), who helped her access job coaching services from Contemporary Guidance Services. Alexis also enjoys participating in Alumni Association activities. During the 2010-2011 school year, she especially enjoyed catching up with former classmates over dinner at a local BBQ restaurant and is looking forward to many more activities in the future.

Club Day at the Cooke Center Middle School Cooke Center Middle School Students Explore Their Hobbies During Friday Clubs

Every Friday, Cooke Center Middle School students have the opportunity to explore their interests by participating in five different student-formed c l u b s . T h e

Friday clubs last for two periods and include sports, movie, music, games and explorer groups.

Students get to choose which activities they want to participate in and socialize with other students who share their interests. In music club, for example, students practice writing notes and playing rhythms together on the instruments of their choice. The explorer club gives more adventurous students an opportunity to get out of the classroom and explore the neighborhood using maps and the Internet. Explorations include trips to local parks, museums, ice cream parlors and other fun places they want to

investigate. The sports club students get active in the gym, the game club has a blast with various board games and the movie club kids watch and discuss a new film each week.

All of the clubs give the students an opportunity to grow personally and socially, all while having fun!

CCA Starts Urban FarmStudents Grow Vegetables in Battery Park Garden

This fall, Mr. Connell’s science classes started an urban farm at the Battery Park Gardens. Students are growing a variety of different locally sustainable fall produce. The vegetables they have p lanted inc lude radishes, two kinds of kale, collard greens, leeks, and a few kinds of lettuce. Freshman and Sophomore groups visit the garden twice a w e e k t o m a k e observations, check soil temperatures, and track the growth of their plants. Once they have harvested their vegetables, the class plans to cook their yield as a part of the lesson. Soon they will also begin composting in the classroom and using the organic fertilizer in the soil at the garden and in the seedlings they are sprouting at the Academy. In the

spring, they will transfer the seedlings to the urban farm and start the lesson again with new spring seedlings. Cooke’s garden space is also being used as a form of art therapy. A garden can be an i d e a l m e d i u m f o r addressing a variety of issues facing our students. The Art and Horticulture program gives students an awareness of s p a c e , a n opportunity to discuss impor-tant themes and teaches them how to care for the environment. The program promotes art and horticulture as a way to enhance the students’ intellectual, social and psychological growth.

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The Cooke Center Summer Academy (CCSA) is a six-week program designed to reinforce the academic and social skills gains made during the traditional school year. In addition to academics, field trips play an important role at CCSA. T rave l t ra in ing , community service projects, and off-site education activities are integrated into the weekly schedule in order to maximize students’ experiences in the community.

This summer, on a steamy July morning, students from CCSA’s Lower and Middle Schools

headed under-ground to learn about the history of public trans-portation in New York City. The NYC Transit Museum is housed in an old subway station in downtown Brooklyn and features 19 restored subway cars along with other exhibits, including buses and old-timey turnstiles.

Students visited a 95 year-old subway car with woven bamboo seats, learned about the clean-up of the subway system before the World's Fair and toured the top secret money car that used to make nightly journeys to collect millions of dollars in subway fares.

The day ended with lunch in the museum's sub te r ranean cafeteria, and a fun day was had by all!

CCSA Students Visit Transit Museum Cooke’s Summer Academy takes a tr ip to New York City ’s Transit Museum.

Recently, the Tsunami Foundation, a foundation run by the family of Anson M. Beard Jr., made a generous grant to update the Cooke

Center Academy’s technology program. CCA is now

equipped with 15 new iMac computers a n d f l i p - t o p

computer desks, including one w h e e l c h a i r - accessible station.

Utilizing up-to-date computers, video

equ ipment , and c ame ra s , Cooke

teachers have helped their students move their

writing and story telling from pen and paper to a digital format, recording their voices, words and ideas through safe, supervised

websites, blogs, and other media. Students that have difficulty writing by hand are liberated through the keyboard to express their written thoughts. The technology also assists in daily living and transportation training as students use the same applications their typically developing peers are using to organize their personal and work-related activities and navigate around the city. CCA students expressed their gratitude by using the new equipment and their tech savvy to create a PowerPoint presentation for the Foundation. Each student created a slide that thanked the Tsunami Foundation, and explained what they love about computers and what skills they hope to expand on.

Thank you Tsunami Foundation!

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year’s

nual Fund!

Tsunami Foundation Supports Computer Lab Tsunami Foundation Generously Donates Computers to the Cooke Center Academy

Did you know that there is more than one way to

check out Cooke Online?

Website:

www.cookecenter.orgwww.cookecenter.orgwww.cookecenter.org

Youtube Channel

Facebook Page

Cooke Blog

A link to all social media channels can be found at the bottom of the Cooke homepage.

New SKILLs Building Now Open!

475 Riverside Drive Suite 730 New York, NY 10115 www.cookecenter.org

On September 12th, we welcomed 37 students to the new SKILLs building on West 29th Street. The program, now in its third year, is designed to help students, ages 18-21, make the transition from high school to adulthood. These young adults were eager to catch up with old friends and meet the new students who joined the program this year.

As you can see from the pictures, the new space is

beautiful and boasts an ADA compliant kitchen and a brand new technology lab.

The ultimate goal of the SKILLs program is to prepare the students to live and enjoy their adult lives as independently as possible. This new building will help us continue to achieve that goal.

Welcome back SKILLs students - have a wonderful year!

Cooke Center Online