Senior Citizen Volunteers: Woodland Primary is so fortunate to have a cadre of senior citizen volunteers who join us each week as reading partners. This program, developed by first grade teacher Teresa Burns and instructional coach Pat Jones, now includes over a dozen volunteers who donate an average of two hours a week each to reading with children.
It is truly heartwarming to witness young learners laughing and enjoying time with seniors from the Woodland community. They share stories and compare experiences. The encouragement these volunteers offer our students is inspirational and is making a significant, positive difference in their lives. The volunteers often express their excitement about the education students are receiving and the positive culture at the school. These partnerships with our community are exciting and we hope to continue to expand this program.
OSPI and Karen Beeman: Woodland Primary hosted some exciting visitors on January 22nd. This day we had the benefit of working with internationally recognized dual language expert, Karen Beeman. Karen observed instruction in our dual language kindergarten classrooms then joined our team in the afternoon for a planning session designing the next steps in our program for the rest of this year and as we add first grade next year. We learned much from Karen and are grateful for our continued relationship with her organization as we continue to develop our program.
Karen was joined on this day by officials from OSPI who asked to visit our school to learn more about some of our programs. It was encouraging to have such significant support from state level program managers and to establish deeper partnerships with them. The Woodland Primary team was excited to welcome guests to our classrooms and we are encouraged by their feedback. Karen Beeman’s work is funded by the OSPI grant we received earlier this year and is a tremendous opportunity.
Celebrating 100’s Day: Anytime we can celebrate and have fun at WPS we will make it exciting! Teachers celebrated one hundred days of school this year by focusing lessons and activities on the number 100. There were many experiences that were unique but none as hilarious as kindergarten teachers and children dressing up as if they were 100 years old. There is nothing like a picture to explain this, so included in this report is a picture of most of our kindergarten team on this special day. It seems like the hard work of teaching is taking a real toll on them!