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Changes! Eek!
I just scheduled a visit to a nursery school for next Thursday.
Well, nursery school/daycare. They have both. All the kids do nursery school in the morning, and you can either bring them home at noon or have them stay for lunch, nap, and afternoon daycare. They have a two-year-old classroom. If we like the school, we'll be signing Alex up to start in May.
I had despaired of finding a good play-based nursery school, because all of the ones that advertise in Baltimore's Child magazine talk about "computer literacy" and "pre-reading skills" and "kindergarten readiness." It's part of a trend that, unbelievably, includes academic tutoring for 3-5 year olds. From the way things are going I do predict that Alex will master preschool concepts early and be reading by three or four - but I am utterly opposed, philosophically, to sending her to an "academic" nursery school where those concepts are formally presented.
My friend Suzanne passed on some materials about the Bolton Hill nursery school. "Play is a child's work," the flyer began, and went on to explain that young children learn best from exploring their world, not from formal instruction. The teachers provide a rich environment - music, art supplies, pretend play equipment, a courtyard and a nearby playground for outdoor play, books, building materials - and help the children negotiate social interactions. They do all the traditional nursery school projects, like sprouting seeds in Dixie cups and visiting a fire station, but "rarely will you enter a classroom and see all the children seated at a table doing the same art project." It seems very free.
Best of all: they offer a flexible schedule - anywhere from 1-5 half and/or whole days a week - and they are much cheaper than a nanny. They're located just six blocks from our house, so we can walk there. And Suzanne's son Leo, who is in playgroup with Alex, will be going 1.5 days a week - so she would be starting out with a familiar playmate.
Still: nursery school? Already? What a scary thought. And yet, Alex really enjoys being with other kids. We've been thinking that when our current nanny graduates from school and takes a full-time job, we'll probably want to put Alex in group daycare. It's just the word "school" that's making me think "Whoa!"
Well, nursery school/daycare. They have both. All the kids do nursery school in the morning, and you can either bring them home at noon or have them stay for lunch, nap, and afternoon daycare. They have a two-year-old classroom. If we like the school, we'll be signing Alex up to start in May.
I had despaired of finding a good play-based nursery school, because all of the ones that advertise in Baltimore's Child magazine talk about "computer literacy" and "pre-reading skills" and "kindergarten readiness." It's part of a trend that, unbelievably, includes academic tutoring for 3-5 year olds. From the way things are going I do predict that Alex will master preschool concepts early and be reading by three or four - but I am utterly opposed, philosophically, to sending her to an "academic" nursery school where those concepts are formally presented.
My friend Suzanne passed on some materials about the Bolton Hill nursery school. "Play is a child's work," the flyer began, and went on to explain that young children learn best from exploring their world, not from formal instruction. The teachers provide a rich environment - music, art supplies, pretend play equipment, a courtyard and a nearby playground for outdoor play, books, building materials - and help the children negotiate social interactions. They do all the traditional nursery school projects, like sprouting seeds in Dixie cups and visiting a fire station, but "rarely will you enter a classroom and see all the children seated at a table doing the same art project." It seems very free.
Best of all: they offer a flexible schedule - anywhere from 1-5 half and/or whole days a week - and they are much cheaper than a nanny. They're located just six blocks from our house, so we can walk there. And Suzanne's son Leo, who is in playgroup with Alex, will be going 1.5 days a week - so she would be starting out with a familiar playmate.
Still: nursery school? Already? What a scary thought. And yet, Alex really enjoys being with other kids. We've been thinking that when our current nanny graduates from school and takes a full-time job, we'll probably want to put Alex in group daycare. It's just the word "school" that's making me think "Whoa!"
no subject
Parenting has been made incredibly complex in the last 15 or 20 years, I opine, as a parent of some mid-20-somethings.
K. [and who, for the record, sprouted her bean seed in a dixie cup in kindergarten]
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I don't know, though. When teaching happens at home, it's usually spontaneous, in short bursts, and corresponding to something real - like counting cookies as you eat them, or spelling out the letters on a sign together, or practicing writing your name to sign a drawing. That seems qualitatively different to me than sending your kid to a tutoring center to study for an hour, using computers or worksheets.
the ideas and activities are not any more advanced than most middle class kids are expected to master.
I think the expectation that children should be taught to read at three or four is new, and so is the expectation that they'll be doing addition and subtraction at that age. I mean, I've known kids who did those things on their own - I was one of them - but I think the baseline expectation used to be that your learned to read in first grade.