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CAAEL Basketball

The CAAEL Basketball season is under way. CAAEL basketball has been one of the most highly anticipated sports for Felicity students to be able to join. Each student on the team gains an opportunity to earn a sportsmanship award at the end of every game, as well as providing reasoning behind why the student was chosen. Felicity students also have the opportunity to provide two sportsmanship ribbons to two students on the opposing team.

To start the season, Felicity started with a victory of 38-17 against South Palatine at the home court. The second week against New Hope Academy ended with a loss of 16-28. Next, North Shore Academy’s game ended with a loss of 21-37. However, week four took a turn for the positive with a 32-16 win against Forest View.

Although it hasn’t always been easy to win a few games, Felicity students have found new ways to collaborate as a team and zone in on a few key basketball skills to carry with them in future games. Hopefully the best is yet to come!

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Special Guest at the Felicity Gym

Last Friday, we had the honor of hosting music artist Nicky Jam, who was accompanied by a small group of friends and colleagues, to play a few games of basketball before playing a local stadium show in the area. Nicky was welcoming of student spectators. In fact, Nicky and his entourage invited a student on the CAAEL basketball team to play a few games. Our student kept up with the pace of the other players smoothly. Before leaving for the day after getting a workout in, Nicky Jam agreed to meet a few students who were fans of his music. In fact, one of our other students, who had been a fan of Nicky Jam since her childhood, was able to get a t-shirt with a personalized autograph. Please see a few of our pictures from the unexpected surprise below!

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A Message from Our Teachers!

Felicity teachers have had to adapt to a lot of changes this school year, especially with new students coming in and creating new ways to connect, here are a few messages from our classroom teachers about some highlights from the school year:

Felicity represents an opportunity for the classes to have different experiences.  We love the different lunches, band room, staff members and peers.  We also love the opportunity to do different ways of instruction from hands on to direct instruction to computer based instruction.  The ability to diversify and know that in my room, it is not about the disability but the ability, brings out the uniqueness of each other.- Ms. Horwitz

“This year, our class started playing board/card games during our breaks. It has been a great way to build rapport in our classroom and create positive relationships. Our students look forward to playing the games and spending social time with their classmates and teachers. We love to see the students in our classroom bond with each other, along with the staff.” -Ms. Nightingale and Mr. Mitchem

“We have discovered talented artists and musicians in our classroom  In fact, a Felicity Art Gallery is in the works, with the help of our art therapist, Ms. Freberg! Join in Karaoke and jam sessions in our Felicity Band Room.”- Ms. Wright and Mr. Farca

“The ability to transition in and out of a work-centered environment, to a fun and caring space, is crucial to the development of students at Felicity School!  At Felicity, you can often find many avenues for personal growth: 1 on 1 basketball or maybe a game of Sorry! Need a bracelet or want to relax and use the rubber band loom? Not a problem! Feel like signing up for our basketball team? Of course you do! Here at Felicity, we have opportunities for students to grow into the best versions of themselves.” -Mr. Luskin and Mr. Townsend

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Halfway There!

Felicity School has officially wrapped up the first half of the 2021-2022 School Year!

We have been building groundwork in making positive changes for our students such as writing and presenting practice marketing pitches for the ROCKS restaurant group, putting up posters in the band room, finishing up the aquaponics set up, coming up with student movies to present in Film Studies and adding small group activities such as classroom board games to break up the day with students.

Before leaving on winter break, students were able to enter their tickets to win raffle prizes such as giftcards, art supplies, and chocolate to name a few. Also, a couple of our students were able to participate in cookie decorating with a few of our clinicians and got to pass out some of the cookies to other students and staff.

Now that the new year is underway and we have been welcoming many new students, we are looking forward to surveying students to restart our Felicity band, adding new units to PE classes, and starting the season of CAAEL basketball. Stay tuned for what’s next!

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Holidays At Felicity

Felicity School recently celebrated Thanksgiving prior to the first holiday break by bringing back the traditional Thanksgiving lunch. This year, our staff decided to order from City Barbeque including the following food choices: smoked brisket, pulled pork, turkey, corn casserole and baked beans. Students were asked to sign up to work alongside staff on tasks to assist with set up, clean up, decorating, and serving food.

Additionally, students and staff were asked to contribute to the “Tree of Gratitude” project by sharing something or someone they were grateful for. Please see the photos below of the event!

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Veteran’s Day Tribute

Felicity School decided to incorporate some new traditions to honor local veterans. Our students started the Veteran’s Day unit with a documentary on Monday morning related to the impact of the Vietnam War. Monday afternoon, our art therapist organized a bracelet making activity for a number of students to participate in. In fact, the bracelets that were completed were put into an envelope and sent to the Deerfield VFW along with thank you letters as well as pictures drawn by a few of our students of the American flag.

We concluded the week with a guest speaker from the local VFW. One of our students also brought in some World War II memorabilia to share with the class from his great grandpa’s experience and pass around some of the belongings for others to see.

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CAAEL Flag Football

Felicity is so excited to see CAAEL back for our students! The first sport of the season is Flag Football. Two of our paraprofessionals, Mr. Townsend and Mr. Farca took the initiative to find students that would be interested as well as making a schedule during P.E. of when practices would be run.

The first CAAEL Flag Football game was on 9/24 against Connections at Brickyard Park. Two of our students were able to give out sportsmanship awards to two of the other players at the end of the game, as well as two players from the other team to provide Felicity students with the same recognition. The second CAAEL Flag Football game against Camelot of Belvidere was on 10/1 and Felicity played an intense game, but unfortunately fell short of the win 36-46.

One of the primary missions of CAAEL is understanding the importance of being a consistent team member and playing a leadership role. Each student was given the opportunity to explain why the other player was chosen for sportsmanship and stood out from the rest of the team. Please see our below slideshow of some of the practice action shots and the first game, stay tuned for further updates!

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2021-2022 School Year Upcoming Changes

The new Felicity school year is starting on August 16th and we have plenty of changes that will be assisting our students with blended learning and a unique school experience for the next year.

To start, Felicity staff decided to come up with a brief “Interests Inventory” for students and staff to fill out on Google Forms to include the following topics to name a few: hobbies outside of school, enjoyable activities in school, favorite candies, favorite movies/tv shows, two individuals you would like to meet and more “get to know you” questions. The original purpose of the Interest Inventory surveys were to collect data for what students for “rewards” in regards to assignment/class completion, future raffles, etc. Then, Felicity staff decided to expand this to a broader opportunity to learn more about each other.

We have been working on developing our STEAM Fab-Lab to be able to accommodate a ceramics and aquaponics component to learning that students can gain chemistry, science and even home economics knowledge to apply towards their required classes. With adding new and innovative tools, students can get cross-curicular credit in an interactive way that will be new and challenging for all.

Additionally, starting in October, Felicity School is partnering with The Rocks Group to open a carry out restaurant within the facility. With this experience, students will gain the hands-on opportunity to get an insider look at the service industry aspect of carry out service including but not limited to: marketing, accounting and servicing direct customer needs, based on student interest. Here is an update from What Now Chicago on the latest: https://whatnowchicago.com/rocks-bar-group-debuts-rocks-kitchen-at-felicity/

Please stay tuned for more information! Below is a few “before” pictures of our aquaponics system.