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Parenting
Poll: half day or all day kindergarten?
DS will be turning 5 in June & starting kindergarten next fall. Our district does all day kinder (9 am - 4 pm), and may possibly offer one class of half-day kinder at one elementary school building in the district if there is enough interest.
At preschool pick-up today, several of the moms were chatting about all-day kindergarten, with some saying it's just glorified day-care - that they don't really learn much at the end of the day, and the kids who opted for 1/2 day did not end up behind academically as they continued on to 1st grade.
It made me curious to see what some of the moms here have experienced and/or think - did your, or will your child attend full day or half-day kindergarten and what is your opinion of it?
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Re: Poll: half day or all day kindergarten?
My kids will go to full-day kindie. I WFT and so does DH. I would rather have them in school than daycare. The difference in our district is that they get to have music, phy ed, and art done by enrichment teachers every week rather than trying to cram that in with their regular teacher during the half day.
They currently go to preschool/daycare from 7:30-5, so I don't think the full day K will be an issue.
I have no opinion one way or the other on full day vs. half. I say do what works for you.
DS goes to full day K, he learns a lot, they have recess daily and eat lunch in a mini cafeteria for the kindergarteners.
Do the parents who say it is glorified day care have any experience with full day K? My friend whose DD went to half day K, 2.5 hrs says that the days seemed crammed just trying to get all the state mandated stuff in....
Edit: They have PE 2 /week, music, art, computer lab, library all once per week.
Full day is all that is offered in our district.
Hmmm....DD has learned 50 sight words, math, has learned units on science...and started reading. Glorified daycare? My @ss.
My daughter will go to all-day kindergarten this fall.
Three years ago, all public schools in our district went to all-day. At that time, the private school my daughter goes to for pre-k and will go to for k kept one of their half-day classes (so they have two half-day classes, one am and one pm), and the other two went to all-day.
In talking with the teachers at the school, they have said that they do notice a difference in 1st in those kids who went to half-day vs. all-day kindergarten, but it wasn't to the point where they felt like the kids would not catch up eventually.
Anyway...that is just the perspective and opinion of the teachers at our school. It didn't really play into our decision because it is much easier for me to not have to worry about leaving work in the middle of the day to pick her up from school and take her to daycare, which is what I am doing now that she is in pre-k. She will have to attend some sort of after school program, too until I get off work to go pick her up, so she'll be there from 8:30-5:00.
I think use of classroom time also varies among teachers, but I can say that my kids arrive at 11am and go home at 2:50pm. Minus lunch (which is mandated even for half day) and recess, I only have 2 hours 45 minutes of instructional time each day. Wednesdays are minimum days, so we do library, computer lab, and P.E. those days and almost no instruction fits into Wednesdays at all. We're also mandated to spend 30 minutes every day on pull-out instruction for English Language Learners, which means we can really only do review during that time with the rest of the class. My point is, we have a LOT of instruction to cram into a tiny amount of time in half-day, and if we had a few more hours, we could definitely use them effectively.
Good luck deciding! I'm debating whether to put K in morning or afternoon and can't make a decision so far...and so the school issues begin!
Kiwi Fruit, 10.2.06 & Ellie Bug, 4.5.09
My blog: Bear With Us
Ideas on Teaching Your Toddler/Preschooler at Home
I teach 1st grade and have seen first hand - for many years - the difference between half day and full day kids. Are half day kids doomed to a life of struggling to keep up? No. Most kids, of average to above average intelligence will catch up just fine. The kids who struggle will often always struggle - but that is not solely the fault of half day kinder. There are many variables.
But full day kids come into 1st grade just MORE READY. Not just academically, but ready to spend a full day at school, ready to be more independent, ready to solve problems on their own, ready to navigate a school on their own, ready to buy lunch on their own. They are initally just more comfortable in a school setting.
We are half day only in my district. DD will be going half day. If I did not teach, or if she could not attend my school, I would pay for private full day kinder, no question about it.
Mommy to Rachel 1.15.06 and Ashley 5.17.11
Annelise 3.22.2007 Norah 10.24.2009 Amelia 8.7.2011
The school by us is half day, that's the only option. I work PT, so I don't know what we're doing w/ DD 3 days of the week from 12:10 - 5:30. The school is year round w/ 4 tracks, which must be how the accomodate all the Kinders w/ half day.
Is your DS starting K in 2011 or 2012? DD turns 5 in July and is starting Kinder in fall 2011.
Christmas 2011
Our school system offers half days, full if you pay for it.
DS will be going half days. It won't be in our budget to pay for full day kindergarten AND preschool for DD. I am not going to shortchange her, just so that he can do something that is entirely optional.
DS - December 2006
DD - December 2008
He'll start K in 2011. But I feel like since full day K is becoming more of the standard, more parents are red-shirting their kids. It almost feels like he'll be on the young side, which is a little crazy to me.
I won't share my red shirting views, but they are far from the Nest norm. I'm most likely going to do a tour of the school before DD goes; it's a block away. A friend is a vice principal at another elem school, so I've been leaning on her for advice. And I'll certainly ask Admin what the trend has been in holding kids back until they're 10 to go to Kinder. Cuz I'd hate for my kid to be the smallest.
If I feel like half day isn't cutting it for DD, I'll consider the private school near us, but I think it will be a pretty tough sell for DH. We'll see. Kinder isn't even mandatory in CA.
Christmas 2011
I had to make this decision for DD for Pre-K. Georgia offers free full time pre-k (8:30 to 2:30). In many cases it is actually housed in a daycare center. I went and looked at the one that DD got into, which is considered one of the better ones. IMO, and I worked in daycare for 2 year, it was preschool for a couple of hours a day and daycare for the rest of the day.
Of the schedule, only about 2 hours was what I would consider learning activities. There was a lot of time devoted to eating???? Resting??? and playground. There was also a lot of time standing in line waiting on other kids to do things, like pee. I was exceedingly unimpressed.
We went with private school 3 hours a day. The kindergarten, which is part of DD's regular elementary school, unlike the prek, is a bit different. It is more of regular school. No breakfast, not so much standing around, no rest time, more instruction, more interactive learning, ect.
My goal is not for my DD to learn to be part of a heard like a sheep to make it easy on her teacher, my goal is for her to learn as much as she can. There is a lot more to learning at 4 and 5, really at any age, than being able to repeat what someone tells you.
www.metrobabyblog.com
Full day. My daughter attends a full day private pre-K program right now that lasts from 8:30 to 2:30. She goes 5 days a week. Her day next year (including bus time) will be almost 2 hours longer when she starts public school, and I don't want her blindsided by the schedule.
In our district, kindergarten is the new first grade. I'm not at all put off by a full day kinder program. I do however want to prepare my child for it as best I can.
I can't imagine anyone calling an all-day kindergarten program "glorified day care." Am I missing something? What are the perceived negatives or disadvantages? Maybe I'm in the minority but I'm very thankful our district has a full day kinder program.
I think that the daycare part comes in when it's an optional thing for a program that's ordinarily half-day.
I have heard the same thing from some of the moms around here. Our district is half-day, and they offer full day if you pay for it. They have said that the other half day is for the convenience of the parents more than it is academic.
DS - December 2006
DD - December 2008
I think it depends on the program. I teach 1st grade and our district only offers 1/2 day K. However, all of the kids that attended my school's K program entered 1st grade knowing exactly, if not more, than what was expected.
On the other hand, I had a lot of new kids this year, and a lot of them didn't come in with the needed skills.... so it really just depends on the program.
I'd ask what the schedule looks like whole day vs. half day. If you're concerened about not getting in all the academics, ask what your district expects them to have mastered by the end of K and how they pace it out.
I don't see most 5 and 6 year olds being able to focus long enough everyday to handle academics in the afternoon anyways. However, if you're a working mom (like I will be) I think having your child in the same place with the same people all day is a HUGE bonus. They probably just do less intense activities at the end of the day.
This.
I really think it depends on the child and how they learn. I have to disagree that it is "glorified daycare." They do a lot of enrichment work in the afternoon. Granted a part of the afternoon is lunch, recess, and quiet time but more work is done in the afternoon.
In my situation I chose to do 1/2 for both my children. My son, who picks up on new concepts very quickly did fine and was par with the all day children when entering 1st grade. But my daughter who struggles a bit when learning new concepts really could have used that extra enrichment work in the afternoon. We would do stuff at home but I think she would have benefited greatly by having those few extra hours in the classroom. Now that she is in 2nd grade she is on course with the rest of the kids.
So with that said I would look at your own child and see how they learn, do they pick up new concepts easily, if so then 1/2 day probably would be find. But if they struggle learning new things or it just takes longer to pick up a new concept think about all day Kinder. And base your decision on that and not what everyone else is doing. If I had known what I know today I would have definitely put my daughter in all day Kinder because I feel she would have benefited from the extra classroom time.