I'm with you on this one. Our eldest is starting K in 3 weeks. I believe I am mostly feeling the pangs of my own separation anxiety; the reality that if she continues to choose to not be homeschooled this will be the next 13 years of her life. I'm am dealing with my own issues about not homeschooling her which is mostly that other people will be helping rear her for 7 hours a day, 7 days a week. I admit to having some pretty intense control issues.
I am happy with our school decision so far. I have no doubts that something will come up at some point that I disagree with but we love the philosophy, the environment, the teachers, etc. It's a Reggio Emilia school and strangely they've taken the RE approach through the entire elementary years. Project based, child lead etc. It's the same approach to what we have done with her at home since birth, primarily following the children's lead.
They do not have a gifted program at all until around the 4th grade. The evaluate each child during the first of the year to see where they are in different areas. At this age it's things like writing, math concepts, reading etc.. The children are then 'taught' at each of their levels and re-evaluated at the beginning of each year. I like the idea, and am interested to see how they incorporate that into the RE approach. IE: They don't do math worksheets at all and all concepts are taught via hands on experience. Seems difficult to do if you have so many children at different levels of experience. (Versus simply giving kids more difficult work sheets.)
Our concern is that since it is such an open educational environment (which again is our preference) that our DD will have some struggles balancing out socialization and learning. DD seems to do some recon on kids she first meets. If they don't want to write letters with her, draw space charts, play chess and would rather pretend play, it seems she figures that out pretty quick and never asks again.
The teachers set up a conference for two weeks before school starts to discuss how DD learns, her interests and any concerns we have. I would rather they figure out on their own how smart DD is and I am sure every parent walks in there saying their child is brilliant. But I am curious to hear how they handle the balance between play and learning. I will be asking if they have a general feel for how many kids are reading and writing for example as I think that would ease my mind. Does anyone have thoughts on things to ask the teachers before school starts based on your K experiences?
good luck to all and take care!
), that I could test him into 1st grade, but I didn't think that was a good idea. I agree that a lot of what happens in kindergarten is an introduction to the school environment. I think he'd have a lot of problems going into 1st grade this year, having not experienced kindergarten, even though he could certainly handle the "work" of a 1st or 2nd grade class room.
