What`s Cooking?

What’s Cooking?
The Cooke Center For Learning and Development
Fall 2011 Cooke Center News:
In this Issue:
Cooke Alumni Success Stories
1
CCMS Club Day
2
CCA Urban Farm
2
Trip to the Transit Museum
3
Tsunami Foundation Gift
3
New SKILLs Building
4
Cooke Alumni: Where Are They Now?
A Look at Two of Cooke’s Many Successful Alumni Stories
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.
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 25 th 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
Volume 6 Issue 6
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.
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 ACCESVR (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 Ex plore 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
clubs.
The
Friday clubs last for two periods and include sports,
movie, music, games and explorer groups.
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!
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
CCA Starts Urban Farm
Students 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
planted
include
radishes, two kinds of kale,
collard greens, leeks, and a
few kinds of lettuce.
Freshman and Sophomore
groups visit the garden twice
a
week
to
make
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
ideal
medium
for
addressing a variety of
issues
facing
our
students. The Art
and Horticulture
program
gives
students
an
awareness
of
space,
an
opportunity to
discuss
important 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.
Pl
reme
g iv e
y
An n
CCSA Students Visit Transit Museum
Cooke’s Summer Academy takes a trip to New York City’s Transit Museum.
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.
Travel
training,
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 underground
to
learn
about
the history of
public transportation
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 cleanup 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
subterranean
cafeteria, and a fun day was
had by all!
Tsunami Foundation Supports Computer Lab
Tsunami Foundation Generously Donates Computers to the Cooke Center Academy
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
and
flip-top
computer
desks,
including
one
wheelchairaccessible station.
lea s e
e mb e r t o
e to this
year’s
!
nual Fund
Utilizing up-to-date
computers,
video
equipment,
and
cameras,
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!
475 Riverside Drive
Suite 730
New York, NY 10115
www.cookecenter.org
New SKILLs Building Now Open!
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
beautiful and boasts an ADA
this year.
compliant kitchen and a brand
As you can see from the new technology lab.
pictures, the new space is
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.
Cooke Center Online
Did you know that there is
more than one way to
check out Cooke Online?
Website:
www.cookecenter.org
Youtube Channel
Facebook Page
Welcome back SKILLs
students - have a
wonderful year!
Cooke Blog
A link to all social media channels can be
found at the bottom of the Cooke homepage.