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@Miss Ariel: lol, yes!
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1) Child's name: Kieran
2) Birth month: July 2015
3) Type of school: Public - half day
4) What method of transportation? We don't have buses in our school district, so we'll primarily walk unless there's bad weather (in which case I'll drive!)@catgirl: Ours sounds pretty similar to you - we have an orientation in mid May, then an assessment at the end of May.
We'll be assigned either morning or afternoon kindergarten after the assessment (in our case, they use the assessment to try to balance the classrooms so there's a good mix of students from every level.). This is actually my biggest source of kindergarten-related anxiety right now. You can't request whether you want the morning or afternoon session - and between preschool for my younger son and my husband's hours, we'll have to completely rework our childcare plan if we can't get into the morning session.
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1) Child's name: Elliot
2) Birth month: May
3) Type of school: public - full day (tuition required :meh:)
4) What method of transportation? Bus! I already see the bus go by our house most day so I know it comes around 8:30. He'll come home on the bus and be with DH for a couple hours in the afternoon. -
Ahh, can’t believe it’s already time for Kinder! We just heard about and confirmed our transfer request today, so thought I would join in
1) Child's name - H
2) Birth month - December 2014
3) Type of school - public, half day
4) What method of transportation? Car/parent drop-off -
@mrsbubbletea: @JCCovi: I’m in the Bay Area, too!
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1) Hattie
2) June! Love seeing other June 2015 due date mamas here!
3) Public
4) Car - unfortunately. We have some friends that can walk and I’m super jealous.We dropped off her registration packet Thursday and I forgot a form at home. DH took it by Friday and the school secretary recognized our DD2 who had been with me and knew our names already so that makes me feel good because it’s a big school!
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Yay!!!
1. Pirate
2. March
3. Charter
4. I’ll be driving/walking him. We live a block from the school! -
1) Child's name: Quinn
2) Birth month: June
3) Type of school: public, private, charter, whatever: Public
4) What method of transportation?: Self - our town is one square mile so they don’t bus. Walk or our car will be method. -
Thanks everyone! What is everyone doing to get their kiddos ready? We are:
1) Attending speech therapy. We recently went through our third evaluation and were told for the third time that he didn’t qualify, but this time I applied some light pressure and got him signed up. Hoping we’ll be able to graduate by Kinder start since he’s so borderline anyway!
2) Working through the basic bob books. I don’t think this is necessary exactly but he’s showing a lot of reading interest and we want to take advantage of that momentum.
3) Spending tons of together time just me and him before his afternoons with Mama disappear. He’s going to become a middle child this summer so he’s giving up the afternoons where he’s used to getting home before his big sister and there will be a little sister at home all the time now.
Anything else? I think I’m also going to order a bunch of those large triangular pencils that I know they use in school. His pencil grip is horrific and I know it’s something that they are going to stress in Kinder.
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1) Child's name: Alex
2) Birth month: April, 2015
3) Type of school: public, private, charter, whatever: private
4) What method of transportation?: walking. It’s about 5 blocks away from us. Our city doesn’t have buses anyway; everyone walks or perhaps hops on a city bus.
She’s been in full day public pk3 and 4. I think (hope) she is ready. Though, I’m not sure I am
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@JCCovi: Our daughter's pre-K teacher uses little golf pencils to help kids learn to hold the pencil correctly. I expected the big, fat ones, but she had short, skinny ones instead. She said because they're so short, they don't really work with the fist grip that kids usually start out with. Just something to consider.
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@JCCovi: We won't be doing much to get ready other than preschool. He's doing so well already, and his preschool is in the same building so his routine won't really change other than not going to wrap care in the afternoons.
We've got prek conferences Thursday though, so we'll see what she says if we need to work on anything.
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@JCCovi: I'm a preschool teacher and echo what @krispi: said about golf pencils. I'd also work on strengthening the grip with non-writing activities (playdough, clay, etc are great!) as well, because working directly on the grip can be frustrating if kiddos don't have the hand strength for it yet.
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@krispi: @Jess1483: Interesting about golf pencils! I was going to order the Ticonderoga My First Tri-Write pencils because I know that's what they use in the kindergarten classroom. Our school has subject teachers and we've been with the English teacher for 2 years with my daughter so I know she'll be focusing a lot on pencil grip.
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DD goes to a completely play and art based preschool - which we love! But I have always supplemented with more academic things at home.
To get ready for kindergarten we are working on writing with lowercase letters. She knows all of her upper and lowercase letters but prefers to write in all uppercase. So I have been encouraging her to use lowercase letters more. She knows all of the sounds letters make and loves to try to sound things out. We have been working our way through the first few sets of Bob Books. We have also been practicing sight word flashcards.
Working on number recognition - she can count to 100 but has a hard time with numbers visually after 20. We mostly work on this while out and about, looking at signs or packaging, or while playing games but we occasionally use flashcards at home. We've been doing basic addition and subtraction - keeping totals under 20. Counting both forward and backwards. Trying to count by twos, fives, and tens. Again, mostly while out and about but occasionally with flashcards and worksheets at home.
We've been pushing her to do things more independently - pack and organize her backpack both at home and when leaving school, put her coat and shoes/boots on, and make sure she can do everything in the bathroom by herself (she is still so bad at wiping her butt
).We made sure she can spell her first and last name, knows her birthday, our address, my full name and DH's full name, and we are working on teaching her my phone number. We also made sure she knows my mom and my MIL's full names since they are listed as the emergency contacts.
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I am actually trying really really hard to NOT do anything at least academics wise with my son before K starts because of the disaster that’s turned into with my older daughter! She was super eager to read and learn things very early so we supported and worked with her a lot, and then she was so far ahead of the other kids we’ve now had to move her to a different school because she was bored out of her skull and they weren’t able to engage her. My son goes to full day daycare which follows a preschool curriculum so I’m letting him just stay with the pack and not pushing him at home at all unless he’s super into it!
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I'm not trying to do anything specific to get him ready for Kinder but I am encouraging what he's interested in. He has the first set of Bob books and we're going through them, he has been really into writing and spelling. He's interested in addition so we've been doing simple addition problems.
He knows our address but we're moving so I need to teach him our new one. He hasn't learned my phone number yet but we're working on it. This isn't really for kinder purposes, more just for safety and my peace of mind.
I don't want to over-prepare him academically because he's a decently smart cookie and I think he'll be fine. I probably need to do more preparation for life skills actually, like packing his own back pack and making sure he can open a lunch box!
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The biggest thing I'm working on with DS is to not eat foods without confirming that they don't have nuts. We've been working on that for quite a while. School and afterschool care are supposed to be nut free which is nice but can also lead to a false sense of security.
DD is in 1st grade and still very much learning to read. I've started passing down some of her old reading supplies to DS. He has picked up about 5 sight words and likes to play with these wooden 3 letter word blocks for a minute or two. We have a bunch of BOB books but at this point I don't foresee introducing them unless he picks them up.
He figured out how to hold a pencil (which led to the ability to write his name) when he did his valentines.
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@catgirl: So smart to make sure they know your info! I'm going to add our phone numbers and full names to the list.
@HappyBaker: Is your second going to the same school as your first or the first school she tried? We're at a small private school so I know they'll be able to support him if he ends up being way ahead. I think it's unlikely though since it's pretty typical in our area for tons of kids to show up knowing how to read and do kinder level math. At least in English, our school splits into reading levels almost immediately.
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@JCCovi: your school sounds amazing that they already start doing that in K! He’s going to the first school she tried (our local public school) - our thoughts are if they can’t meet his (different from her) needs either we will probably just move instead of putting all 3 kids in private school. Most of the kids in our district show up to K barely knowing any letters and they just aren’t set up well / have any idea on how to differentiate for kids that DO know more.
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@HappyBaker: Sounds like a good plan. We’re in private because of the great mandarin immersion program but we are probably planning to move back east to a significantly lower COL area before baby #3 needs to go to school.
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Mostly I'm trying to get myself mentally ready for Kinder. We have in person registration next week.
Academically I know he's ready - he's great with numbers, writing, and he just started to pick up reading as well. His behavior is pretty appropriate for his age, but he's a little sensitive in new situations. I hope full-day kinder works out well and they are able to give him some extra challenging work so he doesn't get bored and goof around.
Dealing with a bunch of changes now that his preschool has been sold, but it's only a few more months
until that mess is over.Has anyone given thought to what they will do with school lunches? Currently I don't have to pack anything - which I appreciate. DS has no allergies but is suuuuuuper picky. I know he has a tendency to pick at lunch and fill up on snacks. Do they even have snacks in kinder? I figure I'll plan to have him buy lunch and see how it goes.
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@macintosh:
Blah. Packing lunches is my least favorite part of having school-aged kids. Our school doesn't have the option to buy lunch so we have to pack lunch and a snack every day. This year a Chinese restaurant has been delivering on Fridays and it's all of our favorite day of the week. The morning routine is so much easier for me and my daughter (currently 1st grade) gets a little variety and something hot. Next year won't be much different since packing for 2 kids isn't really any more work than packing for one.
My one tip that I don't follow all the time but really helps when I do, is that you can freeze PB&J (or sunflower seed butter and jelly at our nut-free school). So much easier to just pop them out of the freezer and they are ready by lunch!
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@macintosh: it was the exact opposite for us since we had to pack lunch for daycare and instead pre-k has a cafeteria. We started the year packing lunches, but she started insisting on eating in the cafeteria. I’ve been surprised at what’s she’s started eating since then. Salads for example. They serve them pretty regularly and now she’s a big fan of them.
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@HappyBaker: Ugh, I'm trying not to be concerned about this with my son before it happens - he's already reading pretty fluidly and I'm a little worried kindergarten is going to be super boring for him. We're in one of the best pubic school districts in the state, so I'm hoping they have avenues for other activities to make sure he stays engaged.
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@raspberries: I think if you’re in a good district he’ll probably be fine! For us it was a perfect storm of a not great teacher combined with an administration that is either interim or retiring, so no one really cared to hear our concerns from day 1 of this year. Honestly I think she would have been fine just with a different teacher but they were not open to that so we just left! It was super frustrating so hopefully we’ll get new administration this summer and next year will be different.
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Has anyone been in Montessori preschool? I am curious how the transition will be to traditional public school.
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Received the official email that the in-person kindergarten registration/screening for DS is canceled. Blah. I obviously knew it would be with all of this going on, but I was really looking forward to taking DS and showing him his school. He was telling me the other day that he's going to miss his preschool friends (we are moving and it's unlikely that any of them will be in our new district). I don't have the heart to tell him yet that he might be done with preschool for the year.
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@LadyDi: The idea that they might not go back to their preschools is hitting me hard too. I know it's a small thing in the overall scope of what's going on right now, but it feels pretty surreal. C keeps asking if she can have this or that in her snack on her next preschool day, and I just keep saying, "sure, we'll see!" or something non-committal. She understands that she's out of school for now, but definitely has no concept that it might be for the rest of the year.
I registered C for Kindergarten at her elementary school last Thursday, just as we were getting news that schools would close the next day. That morning, I had a hunch that I was cutting it close to when schools would close, but I didn't realize just how close.
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I am usually the biggest procrastinator but somehow got it together to register DS2 for kindergarten early this time. We were a bit behind with DS1. So thankful we did that b/c it would be a giant pain! We got an email that the school office is technically open but if you're needing anything essentially, they meet you at the door and do a hand off there. So you'd have to hand off all of your documents and then come back another day to pick them up.
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We just got a letter from our school district that there will be an online orientation/parental information session at the end of May on Google Meet and that all assessments and screenings for the incoming kindergarten class are officially cancelled. Anyone else have an update from their school? It'll be interesting to see how this plays out!
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@raspberries: nothing official here (we register early and then hear nothing until August anyway) but we’ve pretty much been told school won’t be normal. I’m pretty sad about it as kinder is about so much more than academic instruction and I was really hopeful my son would love it. It’s harder to imagine if things like cafeteria, playground, specials, etc are going to be limited (and likely only part time days anyway to hold down class sizes). And the whole mask thing is hard to picture. My state isn’t acting according to the data/science so I don’t hold out much hope we’ll be over it.
I’m much more worried about homeschooling him than my almost 3rd grader if it comes to that. I just bought a book from the thread on learning to read because that really worries me!
I did go ahead this week and buy him school supplies (it’s a pta fundraiser to buy it early as a pack, they deliver later) and a new school tshirt. Hope he gets to use them.
Sorry for the novel I’ve been thinking about school worries way too much lately!
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@raspberries: We aren’t expecting anything official for awhile but Tuesday our school will have an online town hall to let us know some thoughts. A lot of schools in the area (public and private) are talking about hybrid physical and distant models. Our school is small and has small class sizes so I’m kind of hoping we’ll be able to physically attend, but no one around me sounds optimistic. We’ve decided to homeschool if the school years starts out as online only but I’m stressed that we won’t even know by the time tuition is due (end of this month) or I’ll pay to send both of them to school and within a month we’ll be back to distant learning. We are expecting #3 this summer and there’s no way I can continue working if distance learning last through the fall. But I also can’t afford to pay tuition if I’m not working...
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@raspberries: Our parent orientation was supposed to be last week and kindergarten screening was scheduled for the end of May. They cancelled both but we've heard nothing about rescheduling - virtual or otherwise. I signed up for all possible emails from the school/district but they haven't had any information on next year.
I'm really worried about what next year will look like. I think starting with part (or full time) virtual learning would be really hard for kindergartners who don't have any experience in school. Our district has the current elementary daily assignments online and visible for all. We have been following the kindergarten ones for ideas to do at home and DD has been capable of at least 50% of it at this point - which has me worried if this is the structure for next year she will be bored.
I have never been interested in homeschooling, and I'm still not really, but I have been researching more about it. Trying to be prepared for whatever makes the most sense. I think we will keep her enrolled in our district either way, but I may try some homeschooling plans too.
@bhbee: I ordered the teach your child to read book from the other thread. I'm hoping it will be helpful. DD knows her letter sounds and knows a bunch of sight words, but putting the sounds together hasn't clicked. We have the bob books but so far they haven't helped much. But I'm also afraid to have her be ahead and bored.
I spend so much time worrying about school.
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We’ll do K at the same school we’ve been at for pre-k. We still have a couple weeks left for this year and no idea what they’ll do in the fall. Hearing all the things about limiting interactions between classes makes my heart hurt. I know she has good friends from her class now and the idea that they’d be in different classes next year and never see each other... it sucks.
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We just registered for kindergarten online this week. We were about to register in person when the schools shut down. Our schools are out / distance learning for the rest of this year, which ends next week anyway. Our district hasn't said anything about next school year yet, but several surrounding districts have been considering modifications to attendance. Nothing is decided for anyone though. Our state is trying to open the economy somewhat, so I'm guessing that everyone is waiting to see what effects that has.
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We have been getting all the normal pre-school information like signing up for aftercare, the assessment for finding the right fit for kindergarten class based on kid's personalities, etc. Rumor has it school may start early in July but staggered attendance and some virtual components. I'm super disappointed for my daughter that her start to public school/kindergarten will not be "normal", but anything to mix it up for her and get her on some sort of academic track will be really helpful for all of us (her preschool provides nothing right now).
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What is everyone hearing about fall semester?
We attend a private school but we have let them know we won’t be attending unless school is in-person. If we’re going to virtual route we might as well homeschool and I’ve been working to design our curriculum for that scenario.
Our local public school district has announced that the only scenario they are presenting to the board is an alternating weekly schedule of in-person/independent learning. I was surprised to see such an early commitment and now I’m eagerly watching what the other locals school districts will do. (Our private school is located in a neighboring school district.)
Here’s from our superintendent:
“While we are one of the first districts to publicly address a reopening plan, more and more districts will begin to share their plans and it will become clear that returning to school as we once knew it is simply not going to happen anywhere.Is this inconvenient? Yes. Does this put an extraordinary burden on working parents and low income families? Yes. Does this potentially exacerbate inequities? Yes. Will this be hard on our children? Yes. Do we have an alternative? Unfortunately, No. But we DO have the most amazing and creative staff in education and an incredibly supportive community. We WILL design our way to a innovative new normal and take care of our most vulnerable.’’
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@JCCovi: I’ll be interested to see where our district ends up. It’s pretty huge - there are 40+ elementaries - so I feel like they must have tons of parent pressure from every side, the “no way without a vaccine” to “my kid better be there full time”. I don’t envy the superintendent!! They’ve only said for sure that 1) we’re not starting early / going year round and 2) they are offering a fully virtual option (will not be tied to any one school, will operate more like a magnet). They’re indicating in-person will be cohorts A and B to lower class sizes, switched off with remote. But nothing is finalized on that.
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Neither our district or any around us has announced anything yet, but there’s a ton of speculation and gossip about it.
).
until that mess is over.
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