Kindergarten - Littleton,CO

D.M. I would double check the date and age...some states don't even require KG...and when I did research for KG and CO when we lived there a few years ago they had to be 5 by 10-1 for KG...just suggesting...maybe call the school district you are in. Cause some cities and counties do it different in CO as well.

Our daughter is in 1st grade...she excels and is meeting and exceeding expectations...however, I think she's bored. I would have the school you want to send her to test her soon...they may other other reccomendations too.

If you went to the website you may have misread it, if someone told you that she had to be 6 by October 1st they were misinformed.

Just above the picture of the little boy holding his hand up it states:

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What is the minimum age requirement for kindergarten?

Students are eligible for kindergarten if they turn five years of age on or before October 1 of the year of enrollment. Contact the Gifted and Talented Education office, ###-###-####, for information about early access to kindergarten.

http://www.littletonpublicschools.net/Default.aspx?tabid=105
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This means your child can start kindergarten at 4 years of age if they turn 5 on/or before October 1st.

Your daughter is eligible to start kindergarten this fall when she is a full 5 years old. If she is already 5 years old then perhaps she is in the grade she is supposed to be in and will go to first in the fall when she is a full 6 years old.

Kids are supposed to be:

5 and turn 6 during their kindergarten year
6 turning 7 in 1st grade
7 turning 8 in 2nd grade
8 turning 9 in 3rd grade .........

All the way up to being 17 turning 18 in their senior year of high school.

The web site says she is supposed to be in kindergarten if she was 5 before October 1st. So I would assume since she is in Kindergarten now that she will be in first grade in the Fall. She could have been moved ahead according to this site's information too if the right department had been contacted.

When is her birthday?

Ditto Catherine C, there are no age cut offs for first grade as far as I know, and no one needs two years of kindergarten (unless they are delayed or immature of course.)

Depending on where you are, she may be able to go straight to 1st grade. In some states there IS an age requirement for first grade (specifically to avoid people putting kids in private K instead of the last year of pre-K to get around age rules).

If she has to repeat kinder at the public school, I wouldn't worry. My son has a January birthday and started Kindergarten this year. Academically, he was on 2nd grade level at the start of the year. He is LOVING kindergarten! Keeping the academic stuff easy this year (although he does get a leveled reading group) has freed him up to enjoy learning about his new school, making friends and getting oriented in our new community.

I suggest that you do whatever FEELs right for your family and your daughter. If you're confident with you decision, whatever it is, your daughter will thrive!

I'm not sure why she would need to repeat kindergarten, necessarily? If she is on track to graduate from Kinder this year, you can put her directly into first grade next year. There is no age cutoff for first grade. That is what I did for my younger daughter. Honestly, if your daughter can read all the proper sight words and can do grade-level math, she will be bored silly repeating it next year. Check out the following article on why it's actually *better* for kids to be the youngest ones in their class, vs. being the older ones in their class. It's an eye-opener!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/dont-del...

Anyhow, my suggestion is, if you want to keep her engaged, keep her academic career moving forward. Nothing kills a child's joy of learning faster than having to sit still 6 hours a day and practice things they learned a year ago! Just my opinion. Good luck!

My oldest just missed the K cutoff and was one of the oldest. She had been to a highly structured preschool (in my opinion it was more educational then kindergarten). She did fine. She needed help socially, so I was glad we didn't have her tested to move her up (check to see if you can have your daughter tested). Our school would sometimes pull out the kids that were really ahead and give them "enrichment." The only problems we run into now is that a lot of the activities and rec leagues haven't caught up with the new age requirements. Because she is 8, she is playing with third graders, while most of her friends who are still 7 are still in the age level behind her.

By contrast, my son just made the cutoff this year for Kindergarten. He is doing okay, but the teacher said he has to work extra hard to keep up as the youngest kid.

So maybe it would be better for her to be in K and ask if they can pull her out for some extra learning activities.

Talk to the kindy teachers at the new school. In our case, we have twin DD's with late November b-days who did private K and then K again at the public school, and it worked fine for us because the teachers at our public school did a great job of having activities that were challenging enough to the kids who were academically ahead. (One of them probably could have gone straight to 1st grade but the other is mildly asperger's and was not socially ready for 1st grade)

She might see some of the same material, but the new environment and all the activities really should help with that. My son is in a similar boat. He has a July birthday and could have gone to Kindergarten this year but we decided he wasn't ready. Our school district has a Transitional Kindergartne class for kids old enough for Kindergarten but not quite ready (for whatever reason). The curriculum is at a slower pace, and I think they are filling in gaps here and there. They will more than likely see much of the same academic material, but at that age the learning is going so far beyond abc's and 123's. It's so much about music, pe, following rules, walking in a line. My son is always telling me about the things they do, and he rarely menitons letters or numbers. It's usually cuties poems about how to behave in the cafeteria.

I really believe the new school, new teachers, new friends will keep her very interested. She will be in great shape for first grade the following year with her peers.

My daughter is my third, her older brothers are 18 months & 5.5 years older, so she watched us do homework and read with us. She was SO ready for Kindergarten! She had been in preschool, had good social skills, & I knew she would be bored if I held her back. Douglas County that year was that your child had to be 5 on or before Sept. 15 - her birthday is the 16th! In order for her to go to the same school as her brothers for first grade, she had to go to a Private or public school - I couldn't just homeschool her. So, we open enrolled her in Cherry Creek schools, whose cut off was Oct 1st. (Douglas Co. changed theirs the next year !) She is the shortest in her class, but her parents are vertically challenged, she's ahead in her reading and does great socially, she's right on target for math, science, and social studies, and is in fourth grade now. I'm so glad we open enrolled her when we did but if it were my boys I wouldn't have done it. Each child is different.

our cutoff is 5 by sept 1st except in one school district where my daughter is its 5 by 9/15. Shes in k, started at 4 BUT I'm thinking of having her repeat, shes fine academically- ahead in most areas but really shy

My daughter was 4 when she started K. She had some kids in her class that were almost a full 2 years older than her. It was difficult in first and second grade because she wasn't very good at reading and it took her awhile to catch up, but by 5th grade she was reading at a high school level and the top of her class. I'm also not thrilled about her starting college at age 17 (better than 16 as she has the option to gradutate early), but she's mature enough to handle it.

My oldest started K at age 5. She started reading in pre-K, but still enjoyed K, making new friends, etc. We really started having problems in 1st grade when she was way above everyone else in both reading and math and that continued until she entered middle school. I spent a lot of time working with the teachers and basically demanding she be given an education. (I was actually told by the school board that since my daughter is advanced it's her responsibility and duty to help out those not doing as well as her and in doing that she was learning).

The only suggestion I have is to be a huge part of your child's academic life. Get involved with the school. Communicate with her teachers on a regular basis. Teach her things at home.

Good luck.