Kindergarten....A Time of New Experiences

It is time to get caught up a bit on some of my Sibling Assignments.

A while back I gave this assignment:

Write about one of your earliest memories of being in school.

IEG's post can be found here, and Raymond Pert's here.

Kindergarten brought many changes into my life, and I have many vivid memories from that first time going to school.

My Kindergarten Class. Of the 22 people in this picture,
15 graduated from Kellogg High School in the Class of 1981.

At the time, Kindergarten was private, and you had to pay to send your child to the half-day session of kindergarten. I was in the morning session.

As I look back over the year, here are some snippets of my first year of kindergarten, in the basement of the old Junior High School on the corner of Main and Division Streets in uptown Kellogg.

I remember standing in line for a drink at the drinking fountain, and both BG and BE being mean to me.

I remember wearing red rubber boots with black fur around the top.

One time we walked outside with black construction paper and caught snowflakes on the paper to look at the different designs.

At the end of the year program, we did a presentations on the holidays of the year, and I was part of Christmas, and I said a short poem about a top.

Now I don't remember this, but I was told that I could read in kindergarten, but I wouldn't read out loud to anyone, but Mrs. Clark, my kindergarten teacher, knew I could read because if she handed me a stack of papers to hand out, I could read the names on the papers to hand them out.

Kindergarten was a good and exciting time for me.

Kellogg Junior High Memories...from my early years

This week it was my turn to assign the sibling assignment. Here is what I posed:

Think back to being a student at Kellogg Junior High School, think of a very vivid time you remember, and share a story about that memory. It had to happen at the school.

Here is Inland Empire Girl's pasta story, and Raymond Pert's bball story.

Well, I'm going to have a little different take on my own assignment. I'm going to focus more on being in the building, and not being in Junior High.

You see, when Inland Empire Girl was an eighth grader and Raymond Pert was a ninth grader at Kellogg Junior High School when it was uptown in the old Washington School building, I was also a student in that building.

My classroom was in the basement.

I was five-years-old.

I was in kindergarten.

I am amazed at how much I remember from kindergarten. I don't remember large memories, but little snippets of time that have stuck with me for 39 years. Here is what I remember from kindergarten.

*Seeing my sister coming down the stairs one day and saying hello.

*Going outside one day when it was snowing and catching snowflakes on black construction paper.

*Standing in line for a drink at the drinking fountain, and having BG and BE act rather snotty towards me.

*Doing a program at the end of the year, and I recited a poem about a top.

*Handing out papers in the room.

*Carpooling to kindergarten with the Lamb twins.

*I don't remember this...this is a story my mom always tells. When I was in kindergarten, apparently I knew how to read, because Mrs. Clark would ask me to hand out papers to the students, and I could read their names and was able to hand them out. But, apparently I was a bit stubborn at home, because when I was asked to read a book to a family member, I refused. Not sure why, but that is how the story goes.

As I look back at my earliest memories, they always seemed to involve a change in my normal routine. Even earlier I remember being in the Paulsen building in Spokane when I was four years old and having the gas mask come over my face, and the doctor told me to count back from five. This was when I had my tonsils removed.

I believe kindergarten was a special time for me, because I remember so many things, and it was such a big change.

And it was the only year the three Woolum siblings were ever in the same building going to school at the same time.