First Graders Pilot Exceptional Equestrians Program

First graders from Fort Howard Elementary School visited Exceptional Equestrians in De Pere on February 21, 2025, for the fourth week as a part of a five-week program.

Over the summer, Fort Howard first grade teacher Lara Henke connected with Exceptional Equestrians. Exceptional Equestrians was interested in trying to create a program with schools that not only focused on building SEL skills such as self confidence, trust, communication, etc. but also creating an academic piece that allowed students to work on reading and writing.

Ms. Henke is piloting a five week program with 20 first graders.

Students participated in a classroom portion and an arena portion. In the classroom, students are introduced to a different animal.

So far students learned about mini horses, goats and rabbits. Students got hands-on experience with the animals, read books about them and took notes on what they learned. 

In the arena, students work with horses on different SEL skills.

Week one was about safety awareness and teamwork. Students learned basic commands and how to lead as a team.  They led horses around the arena and looked for vocabulary words about the parts of the horse.

Week two was focused on mutual respect and relationship building. They learned how to groom the horses and practiced leading the horses individually using the commands from the previous week.

Week three was about being a leader. Students individually led the horses around the arena and practiced oral storytelling to the horses. Each story was written down and students brought it back to school to use as a story starters for a story they could write.