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SANDY — Students at one elementary school had an unexpected guest Monday.
One of Santa's four-legged friends traded a snowy terrain for school grounds for a day, making it a special event for the kindergartners at Sprucewood Elementary School in Sandy.
"As part of their unit, they got to learn about different animals in habitats," said Christina Van Dan, instructional coach for the elementary. "And what characteristics make up a living animal and a nonliving animal."
Reindeer were part of a recent curriculum. As part of the class time, the kindergartners not only learned fun facts about Santa's helper, but they got to touch and feel its coat and antlers. The children even got to whisper their holiday wishes.
This allows the students to put real-life experiences to paper.
"This is their first big informational piece of writing that they have done in kindergarten where they wrote three separate sentences about reindeer," said Annalisa Krystof, a Sprucewood Elementary kindergarten teacher. "Being able to tell what reindeer can do, what reindeer have and what reindeer are."
Experience not to be forgotten anytime soon
It's a lesson the students will likely remember for years to come.
"They were like 'Oh, I remember learning about the click sound they make' or 'I remember learning about their antlers that they shed' and those are some experiences that they may not have remembered or even had an understanding of without this experience," Van Dan said.
The experience also has the teachers excited.
"Getting to see this at the very end after learning about them so much and being able to write about them is just a really neat special experience for them to get to see," Krystof said.
