Today we are IN THE CLASSROOM at Little Red Schoolhouse in Breckenridge, where pre-K teacher Kristen Rowley and her students have been spending a lot of time with one colorful book.
“They are very into ‘The Foot Book’ by Doctor Seuss,” she laughs.
It’s one of the good doctor’s more obscure classics, but like every Seuss book it is teaching while it entertains.
“It really helps with their word recognition and things like that,” she tells Krystal 93. “It starts off as memorization. But we’re getting them to the point where they can point out a word and figure out if that’s what the word says.”
Her students call her Miss Kristen. And every day she is amazed at what they are learning.
“They’re pretty advanced for their age,” she says. “They’re doing kindergarten and first grade work, and it’s just because they have let me know they need to be challenged.”
She has been at Little Red for three and a half years, what she calls a “post-COVID job” that turned into a career.
“I had like three or four jobs before (this),” she says. “They were all food and bev, and we got laid off.”
She has invested her time and talent at Little Red. And the school is reinvesting in her.
“I don’t think I would be going to school at all right now if I didn’t have the help that I I do.”
By end of this year, Miss Kristen will have an associate degree in teaching.
“The financial aspect of it, the timing aspect of it, everything,” she says. “They’ve just been so flexible and I’m so grateful for that. They want me to get this education and pursue it.”
IN THE CLASSROOM is proudly presented by Heavenly Times Hot Tubs and Billiards and the Summit Foundation Bright Futures Fund.