What’s new this year amidst the blue, red and green critter rooms of the Woodson Kindergarten Center? A special resource room named The Tree House! The Tree House classroom is staffed four mornings a week by Susan Ruzek, and a very special “assistant” critter named “C.T.” (“Critical Thinking” Critter).

This class will provide  skill enrichment programming for students in the areas of higher level thinking, reading, writing and some emphasis in math.

A Hormel Foundation grant has provided resources this school year to enhance High Potential instructional opportunities for students throughout the Austin Public Schools. Funding allocated from the grant extended also to the youngest in the K-12 program and will be used to provide enrichment for students entering kindergarten with advanced reading skills or at a high level of readiness mastery. The staff is assessing and identifying students who might benefit from this program and hope to start blue, red, and green team classes next week. The 45-minute block of time students spend in The Tree House, four days a week, will be in place of the beginning phonics work time in their homerooms, better meeting their needs.  A 30-minute math class per team, once a week, will also be part of the Tree House program.

Ties to Mary Pope Osborne’s “Magic Tree House” book series, through focus on nine themes, will carry them through the school year. The two characters in the series, Jack (who loves books and knowledge), and Annie (who believes in magic and the impossible), promote creativity in thinking and excitement in discovery, offering opportunities for critical thinking. Multiple copies of these books have been purchased to allow us to invite families to become involved in this series as well.