Welcome Dr. Jay!
Please join me in welcoming the newest addition to our GiGi’s Playhouse National Office Team, Dr. Vicki Jay, as our National Speech and Language Expert! Dr. Jay’s first day was Monday, August 5! Dr. Jay’s role will include working directly with local participants and supervising graduate students in the GiGi’s Amina Grace Speech &…
Read MoreGiGi U and Prep are Making it Count!
These days in GiGi U and GiGi Prep, our students have been working very hard on their money skills. They especially love when we play Money Uno to practice coin identification. Recently we have been working on adding up enough money to buy an item, or picking out what item to buy with the amount…
Read MoreHugs + Mugs Intern Spotlight | Aubrey
Hugs + Mugs is a café and retail store run by our GiGi U graduates, now referred to as “Interns” along with our support and staff. Each intern will manage different aspects of a real-life retail environment and continue building their career skills. Today, we want to introduce you to one of our amazing Hugs…
Read MoreGiGi Knocked it out of the Park!!
Did you catch the Cubs game on Tuesday?? Our very own GiGi was the highlight when she sang the National Anthem and did AMAZING! It takes over 70 muscles to produce one word, and having low muscle tone greatly impacts precision and endurance for speech production. GiGi has been working so hard to increase her…
Read MoreBenefits of Early Sign Language!
What are the benefits of sign language on early speech and language learning? The talk surrounding the use of sign language when communicating with children has increased over the past few decades. The language development of a child begins with gestures beginning as early as 6 months. But how do we know exactly what our…
Read MoreLet’s Keep the Momentum Going!
What a great week it’s been! On Thursday, we started the Summer session of GiGiFIT Infant and worked really hard to make it as fun and purposeful as ever. Our particiants never cease to amaze us when it comes to what they can accomplish in such a short amount of time. We can make…
Read MoreMeet our New Literacy Coordinator!
With our booming and ever-growing tutoring program at GiGi’s Playhouse, we needed some extra help! Meet Lizbeth Rodriguez, who is our new Literacy Coordinator and will be helping with anything tutors and families need during their sessions. We’ve been hard at work creating the schedule for the Summer 2019 session for literacy and math tutoring.…
Read MoreGiGi U is Doing ALL the Things!
The Summer 2019 session of GiGi U is well underway and boy have we been busy! The past couple weeks, we have been working on improving our money skills. Every Wednesday, Miss Nancy and Miss Martie come in to play math games and we use pretend cash registers to practice counting and buying things. Something…
Read MoreWhy We Run for James!
James was diagnosed with Down syndrome the day after he was born. It was a shocking and scary diagnosis to receive, especially as new parents, and we weren’t sure how to be parents to this complex little baby. After the initial shock, we hit the ground running and began doing research. I had some experience…
Read MoreSupport Comes From Everywhere!
The Huntley Fire Department was the first fire department to make at team page for this year’s GiGi’s Playhouse 5K! Some of these amazing firefighters were not even aware of what GiGi’s Playhouse was, so it was great to visit the station with some of our adult interns to show them what we are all…
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