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The Buddies Program at Taylors Falls Elementary School checks all the boxes in the list of what today’s modern school should offer. Plus it’s fun.  

Inter-generational experiences?  Check.  Learning by doing? Check. Using the resources on hand? Check.

Thanks to Principal Jason Riebe, who provided photos of the fifth graders and their kindergarten aged buddies,— their smiles show learning can certainly be enjoyable— as well as the shared unique relationship that develops between the school’s very smallest and students just about to leave for middle school.  Principal Riebe said the buddies’ program pairs meet for a year and they meet every Friday in the morning in the kindergarten classrooms.  In spring there is a snack time outdoors and the kids like to use this to cap-off their year together.

The fifth graders read, play games and do select activities to support the kindergarten lesson plans.   

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