Anyone have a kid starting kindergarten soon? - Page 2

[Amys1st]

My youngest is starting kindy in 3 weeks. We have all day in our town and I know the school very well because my oldest attends and is entering 4thh grade. MY baby is VERY excited. Very.

She knows all the people in the building, all the big kids and a lot of the 1st graders  live on our block so she already plays with them so she will know all the kids at  lunch. Did I mention she is excited? We bought a lunchbox and backpack in June she found, we bought gym shoes today and a new  pair of school shoes.

I am thinking this is bittersweet. Mainly because I am going back to work and I want to so its ending my almost 10 yrs of SAH momming.

[JamieCatheryn]

We went to the orientation for our oldest's kindy yesterday. He was really nervous before and kept saying he no longer wanted to go, but now he's seen it, met the teacher and some kids, he's into it now and woke up this morning early, dressed in the colors of his uniform (not the right clothes though they haven't arrived yet) and said "I'm ready to go to school now" hehe it doesn't start til the 15th. I'm planning to send lunch and snack each day, the food there is so-so for lunch and terrible for snacks. I'm going to try and schedule time to volunteer in the school too, with the 2 year old in tow I won't be able to do anything but help at festivals and parties, but DH can sometimes take DS2.

[SoCaliMommy]

 Do you think 30 mins of homework is acceptable for K ?

 I was shocked when the principal mentioned that  at the K Orientation.

[KSLaura]

Thirty minutes seem like a lot for kindergarten!  Does it include reading to your child?  I guess it wouldn't be so bad if that included reading to your child for 20 minuntes or something.. 

[whatsnextmom]

Originally Posted by SoCaliMommy 

 Do you think 30 mins of homework is acceptable for K ?

 I was shocked when the principal mentioned that  at the K Orientation.

I think it depends greatly on what kind of homework and who your child is. Both my kids had homework in kindergarten but the sort of homework they got was no issue. They got this monthly calendar with 30 various activities. They were to complete like 3 a week but they could choose the ones they wanted. The activities were everything from "count all the windows in your house" to "help prepare dinner." They also kept a book list of what they read or what was read to them. It was really no biggie and my kids really enjoyed the activity.

I find most teachers and principals give the worst case scenario in reguards to homework time. 30 minutes is probably the extreme as opposed to the norm. It MAY take your child 30 minutes a night but it may also just take them 5 minutes. Neither of my kids truely had 30 minutes a night until 5th grade.

30 minutes a night does sound like way too much for kindergarten but I'd hold off judgement until you see exactly what that means. If it really is that much, you can negotiate with teachers. Often arrangements and compromises can be made if it's disruptive to home life.

[SoCaliMommy]

 They said the type of homework will depend on the teacher. The first day of school is tomorrow, so we'll find out when homework starts and what it will be.

[CariOfOz]

My youngest will start in February with the new school year...Another poster mentioned their child still cries a lot, and loudly!  This is my boy too *sigh*   He is emotionally so immature, and I don't know how he'll handle it.. and this AFTER not putting him in prep when I techically could have at the start of this year!  I'm really hoping to see some progress with emotional maturity as the year goes on... we did preschool, but when our child care benefit droppedn and the fees rose up to 550 a month for 3 days a week, I couldn't afford that! and we're now doing playgroups etc instead :)  He is excited about going to big boy school though!  He wants to be just like his big brothers... our schools do uniforms here and he's really looking forward to that (he'll say oh I can't wait to have a uniform, a school shirt, and school shorts, and school SHOES and a school hat, and school bag... and jacket! lol he names every single item every single time.. it's adorable)  and he will have his brothers on campus as well in grades 5 & 2.  It's a while off yet for us... but it's still knocking around in the back of my mind