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Christmas in the Florida Keys:
This six day tropical adventure in the Florida Keys includes swimming, snorkeling, fishing, jet skiing, sea kayaking and sight seeing in historic Key West. The expedition begins at Sunshine Key Resort near Big Pine Key. Students rotate through a variety of activity periods each day. During each session students develop skills in each of the activities. For instance, snorkeling begins in the pool and then is taught off the beaches of our campsites as we prepare for a fantastic dive on the world-renowned reefs of Looe Key.
Students learn the basics of sea kayaking, and then complete a tour around the surrounding mangroves. A favorite of the students, tubing behind a SEA-DOO, allows the teams a chance to practice team work on the double tubes while having smiles as long as the Florida Keys.
The course also presents an opportunity to encounter the unique wildlife of the area. Students will have a chance to fish daily, and will even visit the National Key Deer Refuge to visit the notorious "Key Deer" that swim from island to island.
The course concludes with a New Years celebration and bar-b-que complete with games, arts and crafts and a scavenger hunt.
Christmas in the Florida Keys - SCUBA Diving
This course is an exceptional opportunity to learn how to SCUBA dive while basking in the grandeur of the Florida Keys. Make no mistake, this course is about SCUBA diving. Participants camp in the Middle Keys and will attend classes and have pool sessions for the first part of the course. Once the students are ready, they embark to the world-renowned reefs of Looe Key for their certification dives.
Students can earn a variety of SCUBA certifications: Certified SCUBA diver, Open Water Certified diver, and Advance SCUBA. If you are seeking a specialty SCUBA course, you can earn a Naturalist, Fish Identification, Peak Performance Buoyancy, or Boat Diver certification. This course concludes with a celebration dinner.
Quick Facts:
Dates:
12/27/12 - 1/1/13
12/27/13 - 1/1/14
Students: 44
Days: 6
Tuition (Standard): $1,000
Ages: 8 - 18
Tuition (SCUBA): $1,300
Ages:13 - 18
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Philosophy: SOAR believes all individuals identified with learning disabilities (LD) and attention deficit disorder (AD/HD) possess inherent talents and gifts. These abilities can mean incredible success in adulthood once these students negotiate the challenging obstacles of childhood, adolescence, and a traditional education system, usually unable to respond to individual learning styles.
Therefore, the SOAR model is based on two fundamental principles. First, youth with LD and AD/HD flourish when they are encouraged to focus on their strengths in an experiential setting. The second principle acknowledges that success can be generalized by encouraging our students to develop and utilize strategies, enabling them to compensate for those challenging characteristics of LD and AD/HD. To this end, SOAR staff strive to ensure success for each student across a wide range of experiences. Such success, in turn, builds essential self-esteem and self-confidence.
Based on these two foundations, SOAR participants develop problem solving skills, effective communication strategies, increased self-awareness, and social skills. Program activities include a broad base of wilderness adventure experiences that empower students to make healthy choices, learn more about themselves, overcome challenges, and establish relevance from these experiences to other aspects of their life.
SOAR's Specialty Courses are open to SOAR alumni and students with the maturity and experience level to be successful on the course. Acceptance is conditional on the approval of the course director. Most specialty courses are led by one of SOAR's year-round staff including Richard Peters, John Willson and Joe Geier.
SOAR’s programs are designed to allow students the opportunity to increase their independence while away from home. Independence is gained through self-motivation and life skills instruction. With this in mind, we involve our students in many decision making processes, such as setting individual goals, developing group guidelines, as well as trip and meal planning. This also comes into consideration when developing SOAR’s communication policy, detailed in our Parent Handbook.
SOAR is dedicated to serving the needs of individuals with learning disabilities (LD) and attention deficit disorder (AD/HD) and is proud to be the finest: