OUR PLATFORM OF ON-SITE & VIRTUAL PROGRAMS
SESSION THEME | This session, our theme will be All About Me. Our Summer semester theme is titled “All About Me”. Warriors and staff together will explore their personal interests in life, leisure, arts, food, and community favs to visit. They will take time to experience each other’s go-to for fun and will learn more about each other along the way – hoping to find common interests along the way!
We believe in a dynamic, person-centered and community-based approach to programming that engages the voice of all Warriors, thrives on interdependent connections, encourages exploration, centers on holistic wellness and fostering healthy relationships. This program, like all of our programs, is built on the same principles.
We are excited to announce that Summer 1 of OK Programs will begin on May 2nd. We will continue offering both onsite and virtual options during this session.
All days will rotate between two different activities.
Warriors will spend 4 weeks in each activity for the session.
Tuesday will include two great activities: “Camping” & “Community Outings”. Warriors will explore the popular summer life skill with our very popular basics of camping activity! In “Community Outings” Warriors will tap into the many leisure and recreational opportunities that our local community offers to its residents.
Wednesday will include “Knock-Out Farming” and Cooking titled “All About ME-zza”. Summer is the time OK Warriors shine at the Knock-Out Farm, helping to clean it up and prepare it for a brand new season of growing. “All About ME-zza” will explore cooking with personal pizzas as we open the palette to create edible masterpieces!
Thursday dives deep with “Warrior Trading Cards” and “Dancing Around”. Common likes will be shared in both of these activities that focus on creating fun “baseball-like” trading cards that can be exchanged with Warrior friends. Also, Warriors will move their bodies to the many different beats of life through dancing.
Friday continues to be the OK Program’s ever-popular dedicated Peer-Led Planning Day. Peer-Led Planning is when the Warriors take over the OK schedule and plan and lead a full day of programming. Warriors will match up in groups by interests and have fun planning, preparing, and eventually hosting their very own Friday program day.
Other special activities that will be sprinkled into this session include Kayaking, Archery, and Forest Preserve Service Learning days as well as hosting volunteers from our many different local universities! Join us for the fun this summer!
Please note Session Changes as they are listed below in red, thank you!
This program is offered in 3-hour blocks, with 2 blocks available on each program day. We are currently offering In-Person OK Programs 4 days per week.
3 hours per session
2 sessions per day
4 days per week
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday
AM BLOCK | 9:00 am-12:00 pm
PM BLOCK | 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
This program is offered in 1-hour blocks, with 4 blocks available on each program day. We are currently offering Zoom Online OK Programs 1 day per week.
PLEASE NOTE, ZOOM PROGRAMS ARE NO LONGER BEING HELD ON WEDNESDAYS OR FRIDAYS!
1 hour per session
4 sessions per day
1 day per week
Monday
10 am – 11 am | 12 pm – 1 pm
2 pm – 3 pm | 4 pm – 5 pm
REGISTRATION OPENS
Tuesday, April 12th @ 3:00 PM
REGISTRATION CLOSES
Tuesday, April 19th @ 5:00 PM
FINAL REGISTRATION PLAN TO BE COMMUNICATED AFTER
Friday, April 22nd
FIRST DAY OF ON-SITE PROGRAMS (Summer 1)
Monday, May 9th
FIRST DAY OF VIRTUAL PROGRAMS (Summer 1)
Monday, May 2nd
HOLIDAY DAYS OFF
Memorial Day (5/30) & Juneteenth (6/17) — No Programs These Dates
EVENTS
TBD (TBD)
Michael Carmody
Executive Director
mike@opportunityknocksnow.org
Or Click Below to Send a Question…
Each of the two activity sessions will draw from a menu of activity options that focus on 8 areas of choice. The content of these onsite activities will evolve from session to session and follow a theme, which will be guided by a collaboration between OK Staff and OK Warriors.
Warriors will get together to start off their Mornings with friends. During this time, Warriors will start the session with a quick one minute mindful activity followed by a movement icebreaker where Warriors will introduce themselves and lead an exercise. Each day Warriors will be assigned one of eight roles. The roles are as follows: Way of the Warrior, joke of the day, question of the day, weather report, sports report, newscast report, picture of the day, and song of the day. We usually end the ZOOM meet with a song of the day where the assigned Warriors provides a song and we sing and dance to it.
During our ZOOM Lunch, Warriors will get together to chat and eat lunch from their own homes. We go around and share what everyone is having for lunch. On these days we also focused on introducing and connecting Warriors to community members or like we like to call it celebrity guests. ZOOM Lunch is more focused on socializing with our peers.
It’s time to get your body moving. In this zoom session warriors will participate in an interactive physical activity with their peers and the instructor. This is our movement ZOOM so expect to exercise, dance, jump, and get your bodies moving. These ZOOM can also occasionally bring in one of our community partners to lead a class. These classes can be anything from exercise to yoga.
Provide fun and engaging activities that explore important life skills. Practice using their voice through making decisions and choices. Foster interdependent relationships and a supportive community while practicing these skills. Ultimately leading to enhanced confidence and self-efficacy while performing specific life skills.
All about Arts and Craft – In this session, Warriors will follow a tutorial video or a guide from staff and come up with some fascinating art/drawings and other creations!
It has been already been a year since the Pandemic shocked the world as we know it. In that time we have worked tirelessly to bring back a bit of normal life here at OK through proper safety protocols and getting vaccinated.
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This Pact was created to outline our expectations of all participants and staff in maintaining the safest environment for programs. The following expectations are required of ALL humans participating in OK activities.
Opportunity Knocks will be committed to the following in compliance with the CDC and Illinois Department of Public Health and local public health agencies:
We will continue to develop our staff protocols for health, safety, and response. Our protocols have been in place since mid-March and continue to evolve based on public health guidance. All of our team members are required to perform a daily health screen. Training and review of our protocols will continue to be a high priority.
All program spaces will be routinely cleaned and disinfected before, during, and after sessions
If there is a suspected illness onsite or offsite, OK will execute a contact tracing protocol that will reach all staff, participants, and community members that may have been exposed. We will follow the CDC guidelines on this protocol
OK will ensure that all program sites are sufficiently supplied with ample space per person, PPE for cases of potential exposure, handwashing & hand sanitizer We will provide break areas for Warriors needing sensory breaks throughout the day
We will be limiting access to our programs as it relates to guests, volunteers, partners, etc. Programs hosted at the RFCC will be subject to RFCC building entry restrictions. We will be using alternative entry and exit points at the RFCC and families will be asked to adhere to our curbside pickup and drop off protocol.
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