Staggered Kindergarten

We will have this next year (we just started pre-K) and I hope she gets Wednesday start because the only way I got her to leave pre-K was promising we would go back the next day. I was just talking about this with some teacher friends. I said it was for the teachers so they could learn the kids in a small group and not deal with everyone for a few days. They say it is for the kids so they get used to a small group first. But it is one day, how does that help them get used to anything?
I'm with you, I find it odd.

How does three days interfere with a routine? It is no different than orientation. Basically Thursday was the first day of school, the other day was orientation.

Sounds to me like you just want to get your kid out of the house. Nothing wrong with that, I felt that way too. It is just don't blame the school.

I guess it depends on your POV. We used to do every other day kindergarten. One week was MWF and one week was T TH. It never bothered me, other than to try to remember which day started my week. If it is consistently the same days in the week, then that's the schedule and that will become routine to the children. Just like any other schedule in their lives. Maybe some kids see Grandma every Sunday and have piano every Thursday.

Now, I can see that daycare for working parents can be an issue and for that I'd be asking the school if there were any programs or seeing what kind of PT care I could have for my child.

Can i just clarify?? Do you mean this is how they introduce kids to kindergarten or is this what the schedule looks like every day of the week for the whole year???

I can see a HUGE advantage of starting the year this way. But if you are talking the whole school year, i do think it would maybe take longer to get into the routine, usually by mid oct most traditional classes are in a routine, this might take until mid Nov.

The exception to that being if most of the children are already coming with years of experiance being in a daycare setting where they were away from mom and dad 8 hrs a day since they were toddlers, at that point there whould be little issue about them getting used to it and then i see this wacky start as a great way to get some smaller class sizes in and let the teacher work more one on one with the kids.

That's kind of crazy. I'm in Florida (Hillsborough County) and they don't do that here. That would be so confusing for the kids in my opinion.

We did it in NC and it was fine. It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. They get to know where their cubby is, who the teacher is, where the bathroom is, rules and so forth.
Plus the teachers can test the kids and find out who knows what with only a small group of them. Some kids come in reading in Kinder, some havent' seen the alphabet yet.

Wow, my daughter had all day every day last year for kindergarten. This year in 1st grade they are doing a triade, so they are changing classes. She has 3 teachers and then 3 more teachers for art, music and gym. It's crazy how they do things here.

I think it's stupid and wouldn't be real happy about it...I agree it would mess up my son's sense of routine..I live in the Tampa Bay area, Dunedin, and he goes every day from 8:30 to 2:30 and gets out an hour early on Wednesdays but works for me...

My daughter, husband and I spent a half hour today with my daughter's new kindergarten teacher (two weeks before the start of school). The teacher administered some quick "tests" to assess some pre-reading skills, like right or left-handedness, which eye is dominant, which ear is dominant, and which side of her brain is more dominant. All useful info for the teacher, and well worth our time.

Perhaps your child's teacher felt she would best serve the parents by doing some assessments during the official school time rather than before school begins. (I hope so!)

E-mail the teacher to find out what she plans to do on these special days with smaller classes.

I hope you and your child have a wonderful year.

This is one of the reasons to send children to VPK. They get used to other children, different adults, lining up, lunch/snack time outside the home, rules and consequences. You can't shelter your child their entire life. I think the routine you described is fine for the first week. Elmo movies?? What kind of Kindergarten is this?

If you are talking about the first few days of school it sounds like a nice way for kids to be introduced to kindergarten in a small group.
just read your update, your son sounds like the kind of kid who will benefit from the small group introduction. This plan clearly is to help the kids adjust, it in no way is to benefit the teachers. You sound like you've made up your mind to dislike everything about school and disagree with everything the teacher does, because you wanted to homeschool. You can easily ensure that your child has a terrible year, proving your husband wrong, just by doubting and second guessing in front of your son. You have years ahead of you to homeschool. So much of K is about socialization and interaction. Research proves that kids learn more from interaction with other kids than they do from anything else.

Sounds terrible. Children need structure and schedules.

Also, day cares must be having a fit!

Can you imagine having to keep up with who will be here today, but not for 2 other days and then everyone gone on other days?

I think this would be ok for the first week, but not for the whole school year! the way they do it here is the K and 1st kids start one week later than all the other kids, and during that time they each have a one on one with the teacher to get to know them and to run assessments.