NISRA - Northern Illinois Special Recreation Association

NISRA is a part of 13 park districts and municipal recreation departments.  Their programs take place in member district facilities and other public and private recreation sites throughout the area. NISRA’s activities are led by a full-time staff with college degrees in Therapeutic Recreation or related fields, and trained part-time staff and volunteers. NISRA’s mission statement states that their purpose is to enrich the lives of people with disabilities through meaningful recreation experiences.  

I just have to say that I love NISRA! I think I was introduced to NISRA, through Aiden’s school, when he was in 1st grade.  I wish I would’ve learned of it sooner because it really has great programs for kids of all ages, or at least starting at the age of 3 to adulthood.  To me, this place feels like a community college where all the classes they offer are non-credit only, just for fun!  They have a catalogue of classes to choose from with age and ability requirements and prices for residents, non-residents, and transportation if needed.  This was a place I was looking for but didn’t know existed.  Aiden was always working so hard in school and in therapies, I was always trying to find places to go and things to do where he could just have fun.  That’s pretty much why I started this Outings with Autism blog, incase there was another parent out there who was looking to show their child a good time but didn’t know where to go.  NISRA was a really good start for us. 

Adler Planetarium - Chicago, IL

     

Aiden was pretty young when we took him here. I didn’t expect him to leave this place with some newly found understanding of space or astronomy, I just wanted to expose him to something new and thought he might enjoy their Sesame Street movie “One World, One Sky”.  They play it in the Sky Theater, under the big dome.  The chairs are tilted back and the screen is 360 degrees around.  You feel like you’re traveling through space with Big Bird.  I was curious to see how he would react to the movie since, like the rest of his senses, I was unsure of his visual depth perception.  He enjoyed the show because he recognized the Sesame Street characters but he was also easily distracted by pretty much anything. Or maybe he was just overstimulated and was trying to cope? I don’t know. Aiden really didn’t talk then so he was much harder to figure out.  Hopefully someday he will ask me to take him back there.

Cuneo Mansion's Holiday Light Show - Vernon Hills, IL

This is a drive-through display of holiday lights that wraps around the 75-acre estate’s gardens.  It’s a 2 mile route that passes dozens of light sculptures.  The admission was $10 per car when we went. This is a nice warm way to watch holiday lights.  They tell you which channel to put your radio on to listen to Christmas carols as you drive through the different themed scenes.  The line to get into this place was crazy long but you do get plenty to see once you get in.  Aiden was younger at this time. He liked what he saw when he would actually look at it. We had to do a lot of prompting.

Clearbrook Wonderland of Lights - Arlington Heights, IL

This is a drive through holiday lights show.  There are lighted sculptures and a lighted tunnel that you actually drive through.  It features 100 animated scenes and plays out over a 1.6 mile course.  There is music you can listen to through your radio to accompany the light scenes.  This was the first holiday lights drive through show that we took Aiden to so he was very young at the time.  It was still very difficult for him to focus on things that weren’t super close up to him so there was a lot of “Aiden, look at this” “Aiden, look at that”.  It’s easier now, but he’s still gets distracted and/or overstimulated.

Piano - NISRA

The private music lessons at NISRA are for piano, guitar, and voice.  They are half hour lessons with a professional instructor every week.  There are also 2 locations to choose from and a recital at the end of the season.  This was the class that I knew for sure I wanted Aiden to be in.  It was difficult deciding where to put him because piano, guitar, and voice were the exact 3 things that I wanted him to try out.  Aiden really didn’t care either way so I chose piano for him.  I figured that’s what he’d start with because it seemed that, for him, it would be the easiest to learn and learn he did!  He’d go to class once a week, we’d both have to learn something new, and then the rest of the week we’d spend practicing it.  I think it was during this time, when he first started taking piano, that I discovered that he could sing. 

I started noticing when we would drive in my car.  I’d have the music playing loudly and every now and then I could swear I’d hear another voice singing, and on pitch, with the radio!  Once I knew for sure it was him I was so excited.  I wanted to jump on this right away so I told his piano teacher about it and she said we could work on some voice lessons along with the piano and that at the end of the season he could perform both piano and voice at the recital.  He did end up doing just that and he did an awesome job on both, but his weekly lessons remained mostly focused on the piano.  He did a great job with the song that he sang at the recital but that was because he practiced a lot at home. He stayed with the piano for a couple years but we eventually stopped when it became a luxury we could no longer afford.  He still sings, still has a great voice, but doesn’t always know how to use it.  I will hopefully get him some instruction one day.

Discover the Dinosaurs - Rosemont, IL

This is an exhibit of moving and replica dinosaurs and dinosaur scenes.  You can touch these dinos and take pictures with them.  There’s also kid activities like inflatables, a dino dig, gem and fossil panning and a dinosaur ride.  It was a nice walk through the event but there were so many people it was difficult to get good pictures with the dinosaurs and the kid activity lines were really long.

Santa's Village Azoosment Park - East Dundee, IL

I think we’ve taken Aiden here twice. I’m glad we took him when he was a lot younger because he was almost too big to ride most of the rides by the last visit.  I think they’ve added newer older kid type rides since our last visit, but when we were there it was mostly younger children type carnival rides. It also has a petting zoo that I thought Aiden would enjoy because he really likes animals but he actually ended up getting pretty scared and started crying.  For the most part though, he did have a really good time here.  I think at his size now he’d only be able to ride half, or less than half, of the rides. This place is pretty pricey (around $24 per person at that time) so I’m not in a big rush to get him back there. But maybe one day.