DS1 loves it. 
I am enjoying my one afternoon a week volunteering with his class. He spends his recess playing football or soccer, except on the couple days it's only 3,4, 5 graders at the noon recess.
What I love about his school--plenty of multi-age interaction. They have noon recess all together, the whole school. Afternoon recess is some grades, not exactly sure which ones just that it's not ALL of them but most. (they don't go for one recess, whatever half of the day it is they have gym, on the day they have gym..so for example DS1's class has gym instead of morning recess 2 days a week.)
They also do reading buddies with the 3rd graders and did a field trip with them to the apple orchard last week. And they do what they call "Family" 3 days a week. It is a time right before lunch when each teacher in his school (it is one class per grade) has 4-5 kids from each grade in her classroom and they do activities together. The "theme" this year is "Bucket Fillers." "Filling someone's bucket" means being nice to people basically. Last Tuesday when I was there, the activity was to write (or have someone write for you, in the case of many kindergarteners) 2 things you could do to "fill someone's bucket." Then they all read them and posted them on a board. (They wrote on Postit notes)
Another thing that I thought was really great, and why I LOVE having him in a small school that puts a lot of emphasis on multi-age interaction is this...we had a minor incident where an older student accidentally scared DS. He came home and told me about it, I emailed his teacher, and the next day happened to be my volunteer day. At lunch, the teacher had found the student who did it. She had him come explain to DS what happened and apologize. The older student then came and played with DS, pushing him on the swings. It was a fairly minor deal...but in another school it either would have been totally overreacted to on the part of what the older kid did. Or it would have been entirely ignored.
What I love is that it was handled so that my son learned that this was an older kid who's actually a nice person who made one not so great choice, and the older kid faced an appropriate, not overreacted, reaction and consequence.
His school shares a building with a program for students new to the US and learning English. They are doing something on Friday called "Immersion Center buddies" I'm waiting to hear from DS what that's all about.
He really likes kindergarten, and I like his teacher and the school in general.
I am enjoying my one afternoon a week volunteering with his class. He spends his recess playing football or soccer, except on the couple days it's only 3,4, 5 graders at the noon recess.What I love about his school--plenty of multi-age interaction.
They have noon recess all together, the whole school. Afternoon recess is some grades, not exactly sure which ones just that it's not ALL of them but most. (they don't go for one recess, whatever half of the day it is they have gym, on the day they have gym..so for example DS1's class has gym instead of morning recess 2 days a week.)They also do reading buddies with the 3rd graders and did a field trip with them to the apple orchard last week. And they do what they call "Family" 3 days a week. It is a time right before lunch when each teacher in his school (it is one class per grade) has 4-5 kids from each grade in her classroom and they do activities together. The "theme" this year is "Bucket Fillers." "Filling someone's bucket" means being nice to people basically. Last Tuesday when I was there, the activity was to write (or have someone write for you, in the case of many kindergarteners) 2 things you could do to "fill someone's bucket." Then they all read them and posted them on a board. (They wrote on Postit notes)
Another thing that I thought was really great, and why I LOVE having him in a small school that puts a lot of emphasis on multi-age interaction is this...we had a minor incident where an older student accidentally scared DS. He came home and told me about it, I emailed his teacher, and the next day happened to be my volunteer day. At lunch, the teacher had found the student who did it. She had him come explain to DS what happened and apologize. The older student then came and played with DS, pushing him on the swings.
It was a fairly minor deal...but in another school it either would have been totally overreacted to on the part of what the older kid did. Or it would have been entirely ignored.What I love is that it was handled so that my son learned that this was an older kid who's actually a nice person who made one not so great choice, and the older kid faced an appropriate, not overreacted, reaction and consequence.
His school shares a building with a program for students new to the US and learning English. They are doing something on Friday called "Immersion Center buddies" I'm waiting to hear from DS what that's all about.
He really likes kindergarten, and I like his teacher and the school in general.
