At Elm Creek Elementary School, students get the opportunity to partner with buddies in different grades for various activities throughout the school year. Classes recently met for the Poem in My Pocket Day.
Kindergarteners in Melissa Schooley’s kindergarten class partnered with third graders in Cam Nhung Tran’s class. On April 29, the students met to share poems they had written. They broke into small groups, with the third graders reading their poems and helping the kindergarteners to read theirs.
“I think it is important for our young scholars to partner with the older grades to help build community within our school,” Schooley said. “It also gives our older children a chance to show off the skills they have picked up on throughout the years and become role models in the eyes of our kindergartners. They all seem to look forward to our buddy days for these reasons and more!”
Kindergarteners in Erica Schmidt’s class had the opportunity to not only share their poems, but their classroom baby chicks, with their fourth grade buddies in Rachel Pazandak’s class. The students circled around the chicks, taking turns reading their poems they wrote and petting the three chicks who recently hatched.
By partnering with older students, kindergarteners are given the opportunity to interact with other students in the school during fun events planned by their teachers, and encourages them to say hello to a friendly face in the hallways, making the transition to elementary school a little easier.