Yahoo or Boo-Hoo? Unity kindergartners get early look at school
Fueled by pancakes and sausage, listening to a tour by teachers and still sharing the company of her parents, Vanessa Niz Fletes was more ready for kindergarten than she was one day earlier.
Gathering at Unity Elementary School for an introduction for how a first full year of school will go, Niz Fletes was among roughly two-thirds of the 87 registered Unity kindergartners who came to a special orientation on Thursday. Niz Feltes, who is 5, said she is most enthused to ride a bus and learn numbers.
“I am excited,” she said.
The first full day of classes at the Sioux City School District and for other Iowa districts comes on Aug. 23.
Unity Elementary Principal Eric Kilburn said this was the second year of the one-hour session to acclimate kindergartners into what can be a scary new world for some.
“We want to treat them a little more specially and with some delicacy, to let them know what a great place this is,” Kilburn said in an interview near the end of the event, while children walked the building with the three kindergarten teachers and a transitional kindergarten teacher.
The Boo-Hoo/Yahoo celebration was named out of recognition that some children may cry and others may be pumped to leave their homes for the first of 13 years of full-time schooling.
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by Bret Hayworth