Independence Training Program

Everyone does a project in Wood Shop, and since Ryan is a fitness professional he built a pull-up station in our gym:

Tilapia and ratatouille were served to fifteen with flair for Ceci’s mini-meal, but that was no surprise!

Julie admits she’d barely cooked at all before coming to the Center, but now she’s cooked and served a meal for fifteen!

And no one left hungry … no one!

On Tuesday all four Home Management classes took charge of the deep-fryer, making a “copy-cat” chicken recipe. Watch to see how things turned out!

Both Julie and Serena are new to the Wood Shop class, but Chris has them in touch with the beginnings of a refinishing project.

Chaz admits he was only a little above the average college student with respect to his cooking skills. Now he’s made lasagna from scratch and fed fifteen people witt it.

Was last Thursday night/Friday’s snow the last of the 2017 ski season? Well, it definitely was for CCB, as Friday was our last trip to Eldora (21 miles west of Boulder) for the year. It hasn’t proven to be the last of the snow, however, which is great news for the diehards who just have to take one more run before the season closes.

The idea is to have each ITP student go three times and, if there are empty seats for any reason, students can go more than that. For most of Friday’s group, it was their only chance for the year because they’ve only just arrived in the past week or two!

Linssey has been here for a couple of weeks, but she’d never hit the slopes before – she loved snowboarding! Leon had been surfing in Florida, so he took to snowboarding right away.

No, you won’t be singing any Disney song when you go under the pool.

It’s dirty and dark and forgotten … Except by Travel Instructor David Nietfeld, who today took the Philosophy class on an historical tour of the Center, which was formerly a YMCA. Since part of the student body was off at a boxing gym and another in our gym doing Martial Arts, David had a smaller contingent to take on his tour. He explained where there were once windows overlooking the raquetball courts, whose office once were locker room showers and whose had toilets at one time.

What were we thinking? Well, we encountered wood ducks this week in our Birding by Ear class when we strolled over to the pond at Sterne Park. Sure, there were the standard mallards with their easily recognizable quacking, but that other sound – that rising note – was that really a duck?

yes, it’s a wood duck, and there were several on the pod that day – a whole new bird sound for the group

Before going out, the class examined a number of casts of bird skulls, the discussion focusing on the different kinds of beaks that various birds have, and thus, the different things they feed on- predators with sharp, curved beaks, nut and seed feeders with powerful beaks to crack things open, and small pointed beaks for catching small insects for lunch.

Tomorrow is another birding by ear class, and we’ll see what new birds have returned for the spring.

Last week was busy with drops and support drops.

The “Drop”, or independent drop is one of the two final requirements of our cane travel instruction. Ryan and Trevor both completed theirs last week, having been dropped somewhere in the Denver Metro area and permitted one question on their trip back to the Center.

The “support drop” is more or less a dress rehearsal for the independent drop. Everything is the same except that the student’s travel instructor goes along. The instructor, by the way, doesn’t know where they are either and also wears sleepshades. Both Julie and Suzie completed support drops last week.

The drop is the culmination of many months of instruction and daily practice of those travel skills, including how to orient, problem-solve, analyze and cross many kinds of intersections and how to find a bus stop. The confidence students gain from completing this requirement is obvious the minute they walk in the front door of the Center, having succeeded, and the announcement goes over the public address system congratulating them!