Going blue for Drew!

Drew’s class dressed in blue to support him, Drew’s Autism Day and national Autism Day. Submitted

BETHEL — It all started just a few weeks ago when CPS fifth grade teacher Miss Krystle Gould was having lunch with her students; Drew Walker, Xander Vandenbulcke, Rowan Theriault, Levi Decareau, Richard Paul, and Landon McPherson.

One of the boys, Drew Walker, asked the other boys if they had Autism? The boys looked at each other and said, “we don’t have Autism.” Shocked by this, Drew shared with them that he had Autism.

He then shared that he had a special day coming up, his autism day. It was a day that he and his family celebrated him and wore blue to support Autism Awareness. After hearing this, the boys knew they wanted to celebrate Drew too! They wasted no time coming up with #GoBlueForDrew.

After their lunch with Drew, the boys came up to the front of the room and shared their plans with the rest of the class. Everybody was on board, now to plan the day!

We were all super excited to celebrate Drew! Miss Gould allowed him to plan the whole day. He met with her and filled every minute of the day with everything he enjoyed doing at school.

While Drew planned the day with Miss Gould, we got to work on making a big blue banner that said #GoBlueForDrew. We came up with words that described Drew and wrote them around the hashtag. Then we all drew pictures for the poster. We all illustrated something that he enjoyed. We drew Sonic, Knuckles, basketballs, and soccer balls.

We had someone distract him while the rest of us finished our drawings so that we could be ready for Friday. Miss Gould also bought some decorations, and Thursday night, she hung them all up. We were officially ready for Drew’s special day.

When we walked in on Friday, Drew’s special day, there were pretty blue decorations everywhere, and the banner for Drew was on the backboard. And we were all wearing blue, a lot of us were head to toe in blue! Drew wore a wonderful shirt that said, “Autism is my superpower” we all loved it, and everyone started to cheer and clap for him.

We began that morning with a word search that Miss. Gould made, it had everyone’s name and some things Drew liked. After crossword puzzles, we had free choice until morning stations. Morning stations consisted of building with legos, drawing, educational computer games like ABCya and Sumdog, and silently reading in the comfy bean bags.

Later after snack and special, we did a math number talk with esti-math, a class favorite. Then we played jeopardy. The categories were space, sports, Disney, superheroes, and autism awareness. We all had fun playing, and the boys’ team won. It was okay because we all got ice cream afterward with many different toppings.

Finally, after lunch and recess, we had reading buddies with Mrs. Danielson’s class! The kindergartens came into our classroom and read to us. It was so fun, and at the end of the day, we gave them blue ring pops to support Drew.

It was a really fun day for the class but a very special day for Drew. It was a day that I bet none of us will forget. Drew made an announcement at the end of the day to thank us for what we did for him. It definitely brought tears to a lot of people’s eyes. We can’t ask for a more happier day than that one.