St. John Street’s UPK 4 students reporting for duty!
On Thursday, Oct. 16, the SJS four-year olds received a crash course in phonetic awareness, vocabulary, rhyming, letter recognition and more, thanks to Duncan Kirkwood’s ABC Bootcamp.
Duncan Kirkwood is a nationally-recognized resilience speaker, educator, and author who works to inspire students, educators, and communities to overcome setbacks and pursue purpose. He serves as Director of the Center for Resiliency at Villa Maria College and is a former Army National Guard Master Resilience Trainer. His ABC Bootcamp program brings a team of early education professionals into schools for a fun-filled session designed to help young learners build early literacy skills. The bootcamp-esque format also helps build students’ confidence, teaches listening skills, and integrates engaging physical movement to reinforce the lessons learned. The program was brought to the St. John Street School, and the Emma C. Chase Elementary School through the district’s School Violence Prevention grant.
Donned in military vests and helmets, the students lined up in formation as the “drill sergeants” led activities to reinforce colors, letters, shapes, directions, and months. Students danced, sang, read stories and eagerly answered questions.
Once formation was complete, the new recruits were ready to use their new skills to complete the final chapter of boot camp: the obstacle course. They split into teams, lined up, and crawled, jumped and wiggled their way through tunnels and rings, pausing at each new obstacle to answer a question or identify a letter, sound, or color before progressing to the next.
By the end of the experience, our youngest learners proved that with a little discipline and a lot of heart, learning your ABCs can be a real adventure!
