Education! Education! Education! Who's with Me?

There have been studies done that children who are in full Day kindergarten versus part Day show no educational difference by mid second grade in ability. Children need time to develop gross motor skills, learn to play outside, rest appropriately, develop a love for a physical activity. No they need full Day if they are going to be ignored and let to Tv or computer games but they need to develop their wholr being. Obesity is huge, depressed kids, adhd diagnosis. Get them out to play,.sun, positive attention and learning what to do with their excess energy will advance them way beyond an extra worksheet or macaroni project. Most school districts don't have thr money for full day kindetgarten and charge around 250to 300 a month for full day or like Batavia are going to an enrichment program. Kindergarten in the state of il is not required by law.

I love full day kindergarten!!! My boys did it!!

I believe they should adapt early!!! I'm all for all day kindergarten!

Truth be told. Think about what a kindergartener's daily schedule is. Come to school, do circle time, do some craft or activity, have some play time, eat lunch, clean up, maybe have some more circle time, take a nap, get up, eat a snack, go home.

There is really not much that goes on after lunch that is teaching. The majority of it is done in the morning.

In my mind they should go to school the full day, well, they should get out a few minutes before the older kids so they are not so overwhelmed by the crowds and rush of kids.

More HOURS does not mean more education. Actually, it generally means less LEARNING. There is actually MORE evidence that institutionalized 7-8 hour days of school harm school, rather then help. Then why do they keep it that way? You have to understand, school is big business. They have measly little budgets to work on themselves, but schools make OTHER people and businesses a lot of money. The full school day model was created as an actual business model, that had nothing to do with educating. I'm not being an extremist :) These are facts, supported by documents filed away by our government, that are available to all who want to see them!! (I just mention that, because I want you to know I'm not just making silly claims without supported facts.) Study after study has shown the American school model does not encourage learning. BUT, like most things...they make enough money for that not to matter. Full day school was never created for education. I encourage you to read "Weapons of Mass Instruction" for starters. Even if you don't agree with the author, he cites all the works, resources, and documents in one book, and where to go to read them..which is so much easier then digging through libraries yourself.

Anyway, I am against full day schooling for any grade. Especially for kindergartners. We are choosing to homeschool. If that doesn't work out for some reason, we will put him in private school that runs half days. The countries with the best literacy rates, best high school graduation rates, and best employment rates...have models starkly different then ours.

Education is my life and preschool and kindergarten are very dear to me. The original full day kindergartens were marvelous, with expanded opportunities for hands-on learning, socialization, art and movement. But I'm watching interesting movements developing as we squeeze our youngest eager learners. There are efforts to push first grade material into full day kindergartens. And then folks complaing about kids not being mature enough or well behaved enough to concentrate on material that is being presented in an inapproriately developmental way. Children are capable of learning a tremendous amount early in their lives and I think full day k should be an option in every community. But not all children are ready and they should not be expected to wait the year out. Research shows they will catch up, if provided with what they need, when they need it. Cramming too much in, eliminating play and gross motor time, and lots of workbooks are all contributing to turned-off children, not a brighter nation. Love all those children and give them what they need, not what we need! Thanks for asking, I got a lot of my chest. (Smile.)

The variety of answers to this question really shows what's wrong with our education system. Every child is different, every family is different and you can't have ONE solution for everyone!

You make a full-day Kindergarten and it's great for some families, and not so good for others.

You make a half-day Kindergarten and it's great for some families, and not for others.

We need more options in education, not fewer. If the government would just stop telling us what is right for our kids! I think there are pros and cons to both sides, and the only "right" answer is the one that works for your family.

I love the areas that have both half day and full day available.

We homeschool. I'm glad we still have that right!

It is my (unpopular) opinion that school is not the best and/or only way to a better education, but rather parental involvement and time-investment in a child's life. Learning involves more than just the ABC's - it is about character building, guiding a healthy sense of self, promoting unique and personal interests...these are topics that are best nurtured by parents.

I think all day kindergarten is a good format for children who don't have great home-lives and/or for parents who have rigid work schedules. If a parent has the option to spend the time with their child, I would hope that they would choose to do so.

This is actually one of the reasons I decided to homeschool. Daughter who did not turn 6 until March of that school year was coming home exhausted and with terrible headaches after a full day of K. Recess was about 15-30m tops. There was no rest time. She even had about 30m of homework every night.
I said forget this. When she came home for homeschooling and we got into a routine we spent 30-60m on phonics and math. We went on nature walks, played at the beach, colored, explored museums, went to the zoo, checked out way to many books at the library, played in the kitchen, fed the fish in the pond... made learning fun. Her energy level went back up and her headaches disappeared. She's 12 now and still homeschooling. She has a lot more formal work to do, but thanks to a good foundation she enjoys school for the most part. We still take days off for exploring and I am now on my fourth K'er. He would not last a minute being stuck in a classroom all day. :)
I say all that to say this, 6-8 hours a day of school for a five or six year old does not necessarily mean a better education. Yes, at this age they are little sponges. That's why this is the perfect age to learn to read. It's also a great age to explore the world around you. Everything is starting to come together. Things are starting to click. I say let them have time to soak the world around them up as well.

My school district offered half day or full day kindergarden this year.. Next year all classes will be all day. I am really mad about this and feel like they are holding my kid hostage all day.

Currently full day and half day students have the same curriculum. They have the same educational goals for the year. Full day kids have lunch, 2 recesses in the afternoon, a nap and indoor playtime. No extra learning..

My daughter is in half day kindergarden this year.. She is doing great. My son will have to go full day kindergarden next year and I am sooooo mad. I had planned on doing educational activities with my child at home, we go to the library, the zoo, parks, we have fun..But he will have to be in school all day. My son is ahead of grade level. He is reading well beyond kindergarden level. He will enjoy playing with the kids in class, but he is not going to learn much. I would rather have him home half day so I could teach him to the level he is ready to learn.

The studies show that full day kindergarden helps poor kids tremendously.. It doesnt benefit middle class kids with stay at home college educated moms that teach their own children.

I'm all about education, but I see this dipping further and further down. Time spent with parents is even more valuable than education and the kids aren't getting any smarter with more time spent in the school system. Have you ever looked at the tests given to kids say in the 1940's? The kids these days wouldn't pass them. What are they really learning? No thanks! I'll keep my kids at home.

I think education is the 2nd most important thing in a child's life. (The first being a loving family). A person's education sets them up for the rest of their life, and opens doors and opportunities that just simply can be gotten no other way. The foundation of a person's education is what the rest of their life is built off of.

What's more... I've come to believe that more than any other area of school until college, that early childhood education is THE most important arena. That's were love of learning, and the skills to go about learning, are laid to begin with. An adult can always go to community college, do fantastic, a state or private school, and ivy for higher ed on their own merits even out of the crummiest highschool... but if their ability to learn is killed in elementary, they're sunk more often than not.

THAT SAID

Here... an 8 hour day killed my son's love of learning.
Here... the entire year's curriculum was less than was covered in 1 month of preschool 3 days a week, 3 hours a day.
Here... the ridiculously long day (imho) ruined our son's time at home / outside of home, because he was EXHAUSTED. School was from 8-4. That meant up at 7 and home at 5. Morning madness, exhausting long and boring day, home just in time to melt down, eat, bathe, and repeat. And then the weekends had 20 pages of "homework" that took 10 hours to complete (fortunately after a month, our teacher gave us a pass, as he already could do the end of year homework. It was the boooooooooringness of them that just prompted meltdown after meltdown after meltdown.

It was TERRIBLE.

The day was FAR to long. There was nowhere NEAR enough playtime (30 minutes of recess). Lunch was at 10 in the morning, so the kids were CRASHING (even the non hypoglycemic ones) by early afternoon, and a complete mess by pickup.

TERRIBLE.

I wasn't happy with our district where we were livings option EITHER way. Half day was 2 hours, full day was 8. Worst of both worlds. He'd been doing 4-5 hour a day in preschool and had thrived and been bursting with excitment. We had enough time at home for a rich and varied home life. Once full day K started, all of that was out the window.

We're practically neighbors! Naperville (District 203) is going to switch to full day kindergarten soon too. My daughter is in half day kindergarten now, and from what I've seen, she is learning PLENTY. She is pretty wiped out by the end of the day. Even if they tried to teach her more, I don't know that she would be able to absorb the information.

My daughter is doing very well in school -- I think she is pretty well ahead of most of the class with math and reading. I do not work with her on these subjects at home either, so everything she knows, she pretty much learned at preschool and kindergarten. She did not know how to read before she started kindergarten.

I can't remember which European country it is, but it I think it is Norway or Sweden which doesn't teach reading to children until the first grade level. And they have one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

I think kindergarten is a time when kids are learning how to be students. Raising hands before talking, taking turns, using the school bathroom, sharing the playground, waiting in line, etc. Expecting kids to read and do math story problems can be overwhelming to a five year old. Unfortunately, the state is now expecting a lot more out of kindergarteners. For this reason, I don't really have a problem with full day kindergarten. But I will be holding my son back for this very reason. If kindergarten today is what first grade was 30 years ago, then I'll send my son when he is six and a little more mature.

I can understand why some people could be aggravated by the thought of full day kindergarten, but it's not something that I'll be losing sleep over.

i personally think it's not about how many hours you spend in school, it's about quality teaching. just like in a workplace, you have someone putting in 10+ hours working, not producing the same results as the one putting 8 hours work. it's about quality not quantity. a 5 year old cannot be focused for 6 hours. i still believe kids shouldn't go to school until they are at least 4, and even then only for 4 hours. the educational system i was raised in had me go to school at 7.5 years old. i was reading by then. i was eager to go learn. i was happy, content and able to focus. my 7 year olds who have been going to school since they were 5 still ask me if it's the weekend today (on a weekday) because they are tired and don't feel like going to school. they are both smart and perform well but they are already tired. this s their 3rd year in school.
in my opinion, full day kindergarten is not beneficial nor necessary, based on my experience.

TOTALLY depends on what is being covered. I realized our local school was so sub-par that my daughter would be there ALL DAY and not covering NEARLY everything kindergarten should. What they do cover she already knew. So now I'm homeschooling her for K at first and second grade levels of reading and literature and math plus music and language classes hoping to get to a district in the next couple of years where she actually will work all day instead of sitting around and waiting for the teacher to correct the problem kids. I AM for all day K if there really is work happening. I'm not for all day K if it's just taking up the whole day and not teaching much.

It was very exhausting for my youngest son. One of the problems was that he had to be there at 7:30 am. So he would come home and fall asleep. I felt like we had very little time together.
In my opinion, it would be much if there were more focus on foreign language and music at that age.

It honestly depends on the child.
My daughter would have LOVED full day, but that was reserved for children whose parents both worked and was filled by lottery. That class had learning in the morning, lunch, rest, and playtime in the afternoon.
My daughter had learning in the morning, and then came home for lunch. Half way through the year it switched. She went to school after lunch, did her learning, and then came home.
It worked for us, but as a SAHM, it didn't really matter to me if she was there the whole day or not. My son went through 2 years earlier, but there was no full day option.
YMMV
LBC

I'm all for it! Our kindergarten is only about three hours long; less than time at preschool. Our daughter loves kindergarten and no doubt would be thrilled to stay there longer like the "big kids."

My dd starts kindergarten next year and it's all day. She is definitely a napper so we've taken this year to prepare her for not getting naps next year by longer days of preschool. That may be an issue for some of these parents...some kids do need daytime sleep. Also, there is usually a concern with 5 year old attention spans. I'm sure the schools will address these issues, but that may be some of the concern.

I am 33 and grew up in FL. I attended all day Kindergarten. I have since taught in a couple different states and they all had all day Kindergarten. I'm honestly surprised that there are places that still offer 1/2 day.

I think half-day kindergarten, which is really 2 1/2 hours here, is a waste of time. It's not substantial enough for what children need to learn. The US lags behind many industrialized nations with respect to education and student achievement. We need to raise the bar for what and how we are teaching beginning in elementary. And I'm not saying that kindergarteners need to be subjected to math and science for 7 hours a day either. School is also about developing a well-rounded person, which includes the arts, socialization, interacting with peers, playing, exposure to diversity, learning about different cultures, etc. Children are able to absorb so much at that age and I think we are short-changing our children by not providing them with full-day kindergarten.

I had wanted to put my daughter (now in K) into a half day program, but here in Florida they only have full day. The reason is because she never went to daycare or preschool so I was worried about her being gone all day. The first week was tough but she has a wonderful teacher that always helps the kids with the transition. By the second week she was just fine and loving school.

As for the learning, kids in K are now expected to know so much more than circle time and finger painting (that is what they do in preschool), so they need to be there all day if the parents are not teaching it at home. I think as long as there are teachers will to give these small children 100% then the kids will be fine to do all day Kindergarten.
There was a time when going to kindergarten was prepping them for regular school (that’s why they only had half days), now the pre-schools are doing that job and kindergarten is more like first grade learning levels of the past.

We are hard core education, HOWEVER when my son was in kindergarten he would never had made it thru full day kinder, he has a May birthday & needed a dark room to rest. Kids are sooo different from each other for all kinds of reasons whether it be; late birthday so they are a *young* five year old, still need naps, short attention span, hard to adjust to change, etc

My daughter turned 6 the day school started. We started her in 1/2 day kinder. After the holidays we put her in full day, she was ready. Luckily for us, we had that option, as our kids go to a private school.

Some public school districts are giving parents an option for 1/2 day or full day. My friend is in the Oswego schools & she has this option for her sons, which truly is the best option for parents, who ultimately know their kids the best. Education is NOT a one size fits all approach to kids, especially when they are just starting out.

The same amount of learning will happen, it will just be at a much more relaxed pace in a full day program and it will actually allow for more FUN in the day.

Sounds like my in-laws. They all but tell me I'm a bad mom because I'm not a SAHM mom. (I think it's much more important that my kids have a happy, healthy mom, but that's really a different topic.)My SIL refused to let her kids go to preschool because, she "didn't have kids so that someone else could raise them." Narrow minded? Just a bit!

I do understand to an extent, because as the standards have gotten more strict with No Child Left Behind, schools have less time for fun activities and play time and hey, they are only kids once. Also, I do see how tired my kindergartener is and how much he really appreciates down time on the weekends.

That being said, education is so important and kids at this age are like sponges. Why would we not want to take advantage of that fact and help them to learn as much as they can?

I also live in BB and I am crazy hoping that it is a full-day Kindergarten. I am looking for work and my husband runs his own business, trying to have a kid in school for only 2.5 hrs is crazy! I think that she will learn a lot more being there all day as well. They will also have the time to allow the kids to play and move something my dd really needs.

I say that it's a great thing and other towns that have full-day, mothers, think that it has been great!

Go for it Bolingbrook!!!

Hi N., I'm with you on this one and it was the route we chose. Here in St. Charles they offer full-day, but there were two problems. One was that they didn't offer it at my daughter's home school, so she would have gone to a different school. The other was that since it's not a requirement for the district, the afternoon portion of the full-day wasn't really more education. I think they didn't want the full-day kids to be further ahead academically than the half-day kids.

That being said, we chose a private school for kindergarten. Full-day academics (and fun) in a small class setting (14 kids). Because of the full day they got to do a lot of great extras like plays, singing programs, Spanish, etc. that they would never have time for in a half-day program. What this great foundation gave our daughter was a LOVE for learning. For us, it was definately the right choice.

Here in NY the K program is unbelievable. It is amazing what these teachers need to cover during the course of a year. Cannot be done in
1/2 day, therefore, K is all day. Not sure I agree with it, but in reality, K is
what first grade used to be! So all day is a must.

I'm all for full day kindergarten, as it provides the structure, discipline and schedule that they will adhere to starting in 1st grade, but on a less intense basis. It totally prepares them for what lies ahead for the next 12 years.

A good full time kindergarten foundation doesn't mean daycare. In fact, my child's full day was far from what I consider daycare/babysitter time. There was a routine with curriculum for academics, rest/nap time, and play time. They were always engaged in something productive and had multiple on-going projects. Each child was assigned certain tasks for each week. They took pride and ownership in their responsibilities, thus teaching them how to be productive.

Sounds like some of your mom friends might be emotionally not prepared to cut the strings. I look at it as paving the way for my child's future. My 2nd child will be in kindergarten next fall, and he and I cannot wait! He goes to preschool 5, half days each week, and begs me to let him go all day like his sister who is in 3rd grade. He loves school that much, so that bodes well for his transition next year.

Good luck!

I agree with you. My daughter turned 6 right after Kindergarten started, so she is one of the oldest in her class. After 2 years of preschool, she was so ready for Kindergarten.

In our district, 1/2 day is the standard, and if you want full day you have to pay tuition each month. My husband and I decided to do full day because she was very ready for school and the extra programs they offered during the second half of the day were things we saw value in - music class, gym class, library time, and beginning computer work (basics like log-in and using the keyboard etc), extra reading time and reinforcement of lessons learned earlier in the day. She likes being at school with her friends - she is quite social.

It's very popular in her school, in her class (of 32) all but 6 students are signed up for full-day.

I'm a stay at home mom and my daughter does not need babysitting either. We worked together A LOT at home to prepare her for her first year of school - she went in quite advanced compared to a lot of her classmates - so I don't need the extra time at school to "make up" for at-home teaching.

I agree that kindergarten should be full time for all kids - this is where they learn writing, reading and reading comprehension! This is the foundation that will allow them to do well in the next grades. How can you get enough of that. Our school (or district, whoever decides these things) will most likely never offer full-day kindergarten for free. It is so popular and they are making quite a bit of revenue from the extra tuition.

my experience is that most of the educational kindg stuff gets done in the am and the pm is more extra, like recess, etc. the kids are tired and don't really want to focus all that much in the pm especially for the first half of the year. im not saying it's a waste for them to be there, but being home with attentive involved parents is valuable too.

our district doesn't offer half day kindg, If it had and i was still a SAHM i would have loved it.
Im surprised you do have people against it, since so much of the population is either single parents or dual incomes that actually DO need the childcare.