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WORLAND – When children first start school it's important that they find the experience to be positive so that they don't get discouraged. To prevent children from getting discouraged Washakie County School District No. 1 Superintendent David Nicholas implemented begindergarten for the 2015-2016 school year and the program continues for the 2016-2017 school year.

"The foundational skills for lifelong learning start in kindergarten and if they are not ready for kindergarten then they are more likely to find it too challenging and their attitude will be more negative about school if they find it too hard, even at this age," begindergarten teacher Lori Michaels said. "Once they reach, even first grade is kind of iffy, but once they reach second grade it's really difficult to have kids be held back and you can't do anything unless you know your letters and sounds and numbers, everything builds on it," she added.

Michaels stated that being held back in kindergarten isn't really emotionally hard on students, but having to do the same thing as they did last year may not help create a positive experience for the student.

"It's not that holding them back in kindergarten is a bad thing, it's just that I do different things, so that when these kids go to kindergarten, it will be different. If they were held back in kindergarten they would be doing a lot of the same things," Michaels said.

Begindergarten is for school age students who aren't quite ready for kindergarten for a variety of reasons. There are many things that a child should know and be able to do before starting kindergarten to make the experience enjoyable and Begindergarten covers those things. "Knowing colors is something that they should already know. Recognizing and writing their name, is something they should know how to do when they enter kindergarten. Tracing and using scissors. Social skills such as taking turns, listening, keeping hands and feet to themselves and following directions," Michaels explained.

Michaels helps teach her students those skills through a variety of ways geared towards the students' needs. "We are more flexible, like when the kids are antsy and they can't sit still or it's obvious that they need a change, I have to be able to change and do something else manipulative wise or movement wise. They don't have to sit maybe as long and focus on paper type skills, learning the letters and numbers sitting at the table as long," Michaels said. "We try to have more movement and singing, fine motor skill practice, social skills. We do learn about letter and numbers and counting but we try to do it without as much focus on hand writing. We do it through activities, hands on activities," she added.

Some of the activities involve using an iPad. There is a program for tracing that tells the students what they are tracing, Michaels explained. "We always have a calendar and we do language things, like letter and sound, phonics number recognition. Always have our manipulating things, we use Play-Doh a lot to form our letters and numbers. We always do an art project, for each letter that we are learning we turn the letter into an art project," she added.

Being in begindergarten doesn't mean that the students miss out on anything. "The thing that I do like is that even though they are in begindergarten they do get music, (physical education), technology and library. They do all the pull out things the same as the kindergarten gets so they're not being left out at all. They will be having art in the spring. Half of West Side has art in the fall and half in the spring," Michaels said.

Michaels did research and learned that children learn the letters of their name easiest, so she figured out which letters were most common this year and started teaching her students those letters through activities and field trips. The most recent field trip was for the letter I, where the students visited Firenze restaurant in Worland as I is for Italian. The students were able to learn about what happens behind the scenes in an Italian restaurant and participated in 'cooking' their own Italian dish and were also able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Learning the letters will soon take the students to the New Hope Humane Society in Worland for the letter D for dog. Michaels also has plans to take her students on field trips to Banner Health Washakie Medical Center and the eye doctor. These field trips will help the students learn their letters and also bring them out into the community to places that they may have never visited before, Michaels explained.

Begindergarteners do not receive homework and for the most part neither do kindergarteners. "We do not give the kids homework. We are more, our attitude is more that kids need to be able to play and be able to be kids and not worry about homework yet. The other 2 kindergarten teachers I know believe in let kids be kids, and they need to do family things and activities at home that aren't necessarily school related. Those things are just as important to develop pre-reading skills and stuff," Michaels said.

Michaels feels that the program for the 2015-2016 school year was successful stating, "I believe that it was successful last year, the parents were happy and the students exceeded expectations by the end of the year." She foresees the same result for the 2016-2017 school year as well.