Art Projects Coloring a Snowy Owl While Waiting for the Bus After School, Primary Autism, Las Vegas, NV October 2025

This is one of the students in a Primary Autism class where I was a Substitute Teacher in Las Vegas this year. He was a joyful and pretty easy going student and he worked to focus on his lessons throughout the day though he wasn't as interested in coloring butterflies like a lot of the students were throughout most of the days I was there.

What I noticed is that when I was on Bus Duty, the exciting journey at the end of the day (if you're new or don't know about Substitute Teaching at CCSD), where you need to get each student to the bus they came in on that morning, or hand them to their parent who comes to pick them up somewhere other than where the busses go, where most of the kids go.

The kids in this class went to maybe, 3-4 different busses, which lined up and need to queue for some distance.

On a couple of these days the bus this student, and another, came in on was quite a bit later than usual. On earlier days he gave me a workout trying to keep him near the area for when the busses did arrive but this day we were warned it would be late. He was not happy and the other folks on that same bus had varying levels of disability requiring additional logistics. I guess I was more concerned about these kids because they do appreciate a set schedule and want to be busy working on something if they are waiting.

I had my stack of illustrations in my backpack and sat down next to him and let him know I had some animals he hadn't seen yet and if he wanted to we could see if he liked any of the ones the other kids hadn't seen yet.

He wasn't non-verbal, but he did not speak very much at all. He nodded his head, like, "Sure, why not?".

He picked my Snowy Owl which is interesting because quite a few other boys I've met who have similar learning requirements have also gone directly for the Snowy Owl. Maybe it's a coincidence, but there's something about it that they can't get enough of.

Search for Snowy Owl and you'll see some others kids have colored while I was their Substitute Teacher.

One of the girls on his bus, but not in our class, saw us sitting all cozy along the wall waiting and coloring and came up to ask if she could color while waiting for the bus too. So I let her pick out one she liked and we all sat happily coloring to pass the time until their bus came. They didn't really want to get on the bus at that point because they were focused on their art but when I told them they could keep them and go on coloring at home they happily hopped on board.

We only used a few pens I had in my purse and they didn't care they didn't have a flat surface so I think this could be really useful in all sorts of waiting with kids situations.

Let me know what you discover!

November 2025

Las Vegas, NV