For preschools with an August 31 cutoff of 2.9, David will be 9 days too young to go to preschool in 2014. So he has to wait an entire extra year. Having a full year admission interval seems insane at his age, when he can learn a dozen new skills in a week.
This week he took a tall grown-up glass of water off the kitchen counter, drank some water, and put it back on the counter. He learned how to evade us while running around the grocery store. He started to say meow. When he tried a new approach to going up the stairs by himself and got nervous, he decided to call for help and wait for one of us to arrive. He learned to push the chair up to the sink in the kitchen so he can climb up to wash his hands (though we have to do the faucet). He started signing “more” when he wants more kisses, and started saying “tickle tickle” when he wants to be tickled. And he learned that if he holds on tight enough with his arms around our necks, he can be entirely in charge of whether or not we’re carrying him.
And we don’t want to let go any more than he does.
3 comments:
OK Here's my professional ,opinion. There is nothing good about being the youngest in a class and a lot that's good about waiting. This is particularly true now, when Kindergarten looks like First and Second Grade and children are expected to sit for unreasonable amounts of time doing mindless rote work. Let him enjoy his childhood and when you do look for a preschool find one that stresses the importance of play and hands-on learning. Johanna
I don't think David will learn a hugely different amount based on whether his days in fall 2014 are spent in a preschool or in a day care. The variation should come more from how caring and engaged the staff are, how much open play and hands-on learning there is, and how well he relates to his cohort. But the 2.9 cutoff closes out some options for fall 2014, and we have to choose a place for fall 2014 far ahead of time or we'll be closed out of even more options.
When David gets to Kindergarten in 2017, he will be in the older half of his Kindergarten class (about 70% of his classmates will be younger, while 30% of his classmates will be older). That will avoid some of the issues that oldest and youngest kids face.
I don't know why the preschool cutoffs don't line up with the school cutoffs. Whatever the cutoff is for enrolling in Kindergarten, the oldest group of kids will have an advantage in prior learning and maturity because they are older. Most kids will have been eligible for only 2 years of preschool, while the oldest 25% of kids starting Kindergarten (who already have an advantage) will have been eligible for an extra year of preschool because the cutoffs don't line up.
Around here they usually coincide . Maybe it has to do with licensing ratios. If you are near Newton check out the JCC. It's an exemplary program.
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