Laughing and singing

There is a group of special needs kids that I sing with and today was our last time for the year as school is out next week. So I worked up some new songs and tried to make it extra special for them.  My favorite part of our time together was when each of them got up and stood next to me and led a song of their choice.

One girl in the group is from Turkey and she wrote her own version of "This Land is Your Land"
She recently became a U.S. citizen, so that is a fitting song for her.

she sang:

"This land is your land, this land is my land
from California to the New York island
from the Redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
this land was made for you and me

my name is Olga, I come from Turkey
my family came here to make a new life
where we can have more opportunity
this land was made for you and me"'

Then Billy wanted to sing, "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which is such a beautiful song and it gave me  the goosebumps. Darcy can't really sing or talk but we asked her if she wanted to sing, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and we  went around the room and sang with everyone's name. When we got sang  to Darcy, "He's got Dar-cy in his hands..." she started laughing so hard that one of the teachers assistants asked her if she needed to step outside the room to get herself together.  :)

For Celia we chose "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" because she loves Gospel and Spirituals. Celia is also unable to speak but she does show facial expression and we could see that she was singing in her own way and smiling.  This set Darcy into another fit of laughter and then we all laughed. "Celia is singing! woo hoo! good for you!" ha ha ha and on it went.

And so another summer is upon us which means I won't see some of them for a few months. A couple of them graduate high school this year. Congratulations to them!