Hellobee Boards

Late to the party, but joining in!

1) S
2) September (Cut off was September 1, and he was born at the end of September, so he'll be turning 6)
3) Private - our day care has private kindergarten
4) Drop off

It feels like another year of day care for us though I know the curriculum will be public based. Our district still does half day kindergarten, and the before/after care for that was just as much as keeping him at his day care to attend private kindergarten. Both DH and I are big on public school, but they made it almost impossible for us to chose public kindergarten over private kindergarten. So we'll be keeping him where he's at.

Once he enters into 1st grade, he'll be taking the bus (which also terrifies me), but I feel super lucky to have this extra year to get him accustomed to a more structured environment.

ETA: We also have a tree nut allergy here. That worries me a little more than peanuts since I know schools are far more strict about peanuts than they are tree nuts.

1) Dylan
2) October (9/1 cut-off)
3) public
4) drop-off

I’m so excited but really bummed by the lack of info about K at his school. There’s a link for online enrollment and that’s about it. I have no worries about him in school, it’s just so different! We’ll be doing aftercare. I have no idea what he’s going to do in august before school starts. I guess we’ll have to do some camps. I don’t work in a July but I do in August and his current school is full. I’m going to miss it!

Just checked bell schedule: 8:30-2:38 and out at noon on Wednesdays...

Our school is just K-3 which is think is kinda cool so D will actually go to 4 different schools total!

@Mrs Green Grass: @hellobeeboston: Closing randomly at noon in the middle of the week? Man...can they make it any more difficult for working parents? I'm thinking that we'll have to get a PT nanny as well once S is in FT public school as neither DH nor I can be home to get him off of the bus at 3pm. I really don't know how everyone does it.

I'm so late to this thread, but just read through all 3 pages!

1) Child's name - Jaren
2) Birth month - February
3) Type of school: public, private, charter, whatever - Public
4) What method of transportation? Car... we don't have a bus system! But luckily, it's only a 5 minute drive and in the next neighborhood over.

Our Kindergarten is half day, and you can choose AM/PM. We'll be putting him in aftercare, but only until 3 pm so that we can pick him and his sister up at the same time (she'll be in 2nd grade and gets out at 2:10 pm). Every Wednesday is a minimum day here too - the day ends at 1:20 pm on those days. I WFH so we're able to have them home earlier.

At our school, it isn't nut free but they have designated nut free tables for kids with allergies. They're also really good about using disinfectant wipes.

I wanna join too!
1) Child's name - Paige
2) Birth month - September (cut off is Dec 31 here)
3) Type of school: public, private, charter, whatever - Public French Immersion
4) What method of transportation? This is up in the air right now. If she gets into PM kindergarten, we’ll drop her off at daycare in the morning and they will bus her to and from daycare and we’ll pick her up from daycare. If she’s in AM kinder, we’ll be walking her to school and then school will bus her over to daycare.

We’re lucky in that our daycare does before and affer care as well as for inservice days and holiday breaks and summer. So so lucky.

I also registered her back in January (which is when the info nights were). I’m surprised that everyone else seems to do it so much later.

Is anyone starting to work on skills that their kids will need? I’ve gone through California’s K readiness checklist and DD is good on most things but we need to get her:

#1 Totally bathroom independent (right now she still struggles to wipe after #2)
#2 Tying her own shoes. We haven’t even started this one!
#3 She’s never had a packed lunch which she ate without me or DH, so we need to do some trial runs and make sure she can handle opening everything.

https://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/groups/Anna%20Bing%20Arnold%20Children%27s%20Center/Docs/kindergartenreadinesschecklist.pdf

@JCCovi: Wow, that is comprehensive! I tried to find if Virginia has anything similar and we only appear to have some generic guidelines. I'm going to ask at the K registration next week. Honestly, my biggest source of panic has been whether there are kindergarten "readiness" requirements that are not age appropriate (like reading, or writing more than a few scribbles). My kid is nowhere near reading, and she knows how to write letters, but honestly just doesn't care to. And we just joked about how she's probably never going to learn how to tie shoes because kid shoes don't even come with laces anymore!

For everyone upset about closing at noon- let your local governments know with your votes! Teachers have professional development needs often required by states/local districts. Since districts don't have the money to pay teachers beyond contract hours, schools have to close early- at least, this is how it is for us. Speak with your vote!

@JCCovi: We have sort of started, as there were certain things encouraged during parent night. We haven’t worked on shoelaces yet because she’s not ready and the teacher said they will love us for sending them in Velcro until they’re ready to tie which for some comes later than others. We are working on:
1. Going to the bathroom and flushing the toilet with the door closed. So smart of them to recommend this as apparently my kid isn’t the only one who hates the loud toilets.
2. Wiping well independently.
3. Opening a lunch box. Also might stay working on remembering to bring it back to her classroom (DD is super spacey).
4. Playground social skills, namely sticking up for herself. DD will let every single kid cut in front of her on the line for the slides and there are like 190 kindergarteners so that could be a problem.

Anyone with older kids have tips for navigating getting on and off the bus? This may be crazy but whenever I had something big coming up (test, concert, sports event) I would have dreams about missing the bus and I still do now (had one before a job interview last week), because it was intimidating to me as a kid. I’m just nervous about her getting on the wrong bus or something. Is this an unfounded concern?

Joining the group!

1) Child's name - Ellora
2) Birth month - November (August 31 cutoff, so she will be on the older side and is about to graduate VPK)
3) Type of school: Charter
4) What method of transportation? Drop off

We've finally decided on her school, mostly by process of elimination. Our public district changed their setup a couple years ago and made one of the elementary schools a dedicated pre-k and kinder only school. This would normally sound awesome, but that means my daughter would have gone to a new school for VPK. a new school for kinder, and another new school for 1st and beyond. For me, that's too much change for someone so small and who is so new to school. I also have heard great things about the school but also that there are a lot of resources and programs for ESL and kids who are behind the learning curve, but none of that benefits my LO. So - that means our public district is out. We also were denied zoning school choice because every other school is full, and did not get picked for the lottery of our other public school option (a single school district educational research school - and where like all her friends got in ).
So, that means we will keep her at her current, lovely, amazing, wonderful charter school for their lower elementary. There is a pretty steep tuition, but it's worth it considering our other options have exhausted and we truly do LOVE the school. We'll plan to continue to apply for the research school and zoning exemption each year - as it gets easier after kindergarden, and hope for the best!

@Mrs D: @MrsRoo: What is a round up?

@Adira: it’s the schools K registration event. I have gotten surprisingly few details on it, honestly. But we register her for K, sign up for before/after care and she gets a tour of the school.

@Adira: oh god. Testing? Lol. I’m so unprepared for all this.

I know there will be another night to meet the teacher closer to school starting, but there is just no information about the registration process in my district posted anywhere. So maybe this is a lesson in going with the flow for me.

@Corduroy: we recently found out our rising Kindergartner did NOT get an after school care spot. CUE MAJOR FREAK OUT. There are no other programs in our town that pick up at our public schools. We’re so lost. I always planned to send my kids to public school - it’s one of the major reasons we bought our house in the town - the public schools are great. But now we are seriously considering the local Catholic school bc at least they guarantee after school care. Ugh.

1- C
2- August (1.5 weeks before the cut off!)
3- Public. But considering Catholic due to After School Care problems
4- Walk or short drive

@Corduroy: Wow, that no-kid orientation is at the weirdest time! WTF?? We have a no-kid orientation too, but it's at 6:30 at night!

t is officially registered as a homeschooler. We weren't planning to take the step of actually registering her because it isn't necessary (she isn't required to be enrolled somewhere until age 6). But we want her to take a class or two at the public school, and learned she would need to be officially registered as a homestudy student in order to take part time classes at the public school.
Now we're waiting to hear from the school what their schedule will be for next year. I suspect, based on conversations with the principal, that we will send her at around noon/12:30, one day a week. This will be right after lunch/recess. There will be a short "quiet time" for students in the classroom (she can look at books, play quietly), then they all go together to art class, then after art class is more play time. After that we will likely have her ride the bus home- we live very close to the school so its a short ride, and I will have two younger ones at home so I'd rather not have to go pick her up (plus it would be a mess with nap time).

@SproutBee: would you consider just hiring a part time sitter to pick up for you? That's what we do now (My oldest is in our public Pre-K program, and has the same school hours she'll have next year in K....8:30-2:30. Right now, our college aged sitter picks her up at 2:30 and brings her home (when weather is nice they go to the park for an hour or so first) and just entertains her till I am home at 4:30-5 pm. It's nice because I don't have to add a pickup on to my commute, and I already have the sitter in my wheelhouse for date nights and other random events. Plus, if I have the occasional late night at work, the sitter is usually very flexible. She goes to community college in the mornings.

Next year, we're thinking about hiring a morning sitter to dress the kids and walk them to school, and a second afternoon sitter to pick up. The price in my town is actually really comparable (maybe even less) to having 2 kids in an actualy daycare's after care program.

You can probably find a good selection of people on Care.com to interview. Another option would be to pay a SAHM whose kids go to the same school and want to make a little pocket money.

@SproutBee: ugh, I'm sorry! Is there a waiting list you can get on? People might move or have a chance of plans.

You actually just reminded me to email the coordinator about our after-school care. We haven't gotten ANY info yet. But wanted to make sure we held a spot just in case... We're still unsure of what to do next year after our nanny leaves... but I'm thinking i'm going to start looking for someone 5 days a week to come in the afternoons.