Before & After School Care
Fairview Heights, Illinois
Before and After School Care
The program prior to school (6:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.) and after school (3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.) of Mason’s Place Too encompasses seven pseudo—curricular areas which conform to the concepts and activities listed in the Illinois State Standards. These areas would include self-help, motor, specific rehearsal of the general school curriculum, specific and incidental rehearsal of social skills, art, music, and recreational skills. Social skills are practiced throughout the entire curriculum since they require a specific context in order to be effectual. Note that each domain is not singularly exclusive but intertwined among the other domains.
About Mason's Place
Mason’s Place Too is a nonpublic school and family resource learning academy for students with autism. Based in Fairview Heights, Illinois, we are an organization that transforms expectations through our mission of self-sufficiency and inclusion. Our day school program provides individuals on the autism spectrum with the technical and behavioral skills required as they develop social and life skills on their journey to become independent.
Our academy provides a variety of resources to support families of students on the autism spectrum through various therapies, after school programming, parent night out, social skills groups and other specialized activities that provide support and family development. Our goal is to break the vicious stereotypes resulting in low expectations that burden those in our society with special needs. Our guiding principle is the quest for inclusion and self-sufficiency.
Curriculum Includes:
The daily schedule would adhere to the following pattern.
- After arrival, self-help skills would be emphasized.
- Exercises and motor activities would be practiced initially and every hour for ten minutes, or as needed, each day.
- The specific rehearsal or repetition of academic concepts would be generalized, rather than specific, and involve concepts of set recognition, numeral recognition, sequential numeration and printing of basic numbers. It would also involve comprehension of directions, speaking and manual signing, recognizing letters and basic words.
- The acquisition of social skills is a very incidental affair, and only the concepts of appropriate greetings and observation of the physical aspects of another person can be taught directly.
- Art activities would be presented almost exclusively during the after-school session in the afternoon/
- Music is universally appreciated by autistic children. It can be used ambiently throughout the day to indicate changes in the routine and it would be specifically taught during the afternoon sessions.
- Within an after-school program, recreation is a primary concern, because kids need to defuse and release tension. Each child attending the program would be informally assessed as to the need for relaxation or specific recreation.
All the above activities incorporate the concepts of eye-hand coordination, joint referencing, imitation, language usage, general and fine motor skills, and parallel and cooperative play.