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Yeah preschool would be the equivalent of Kindergarten I think . No formal academics though, the curriculum just talks a lot about providing opportunities for children to learn about things while playing by providing different literary materials and different kinds of games that use maths and that kind of thing http://www.oph.fi/download/153504_na...ation_2010.pdf Really looking forward to my kid starting next year!
But I don't think our daycares are like preschools over there, not as formal as some anyway. A normal day for my kid goes like this - arrive and play outside, go indoors and free play for a while, do something somewhat structured like drawing, playing with modelling clay, doing a specific art or craft with instructions, learning a song or a dance, or playing a group game, lunch, story time, nap/quiet play time, snack time, then its back outside for the rest of the day. Sometimes instead of the structured activity inside they'll go for a walk to the forest or the lake or visit the library or go sledge on a nearby hill/build a snowfort/just go nuts in the snow. All in all there's just half an hour of structured activity a day.
That's pretty much exactly what my 4 year old's preschool does. Of course, I picked a play-based preschool. There's other preschools that are more academic, but most of the ones I've seen in my neck of the woods are playbased. The heavily academic ones seem to have gone out of style.
A normal day for my kid is arrive, free play, circle time where they read stories, sing songs and talk about things like the calendar and the weather, go outside to play, eat lunch, take a nap, eat a snack, have craft / music / Spanish time, go outside to play, and then get ready to go home. So there's *2* thirty minute periods of structured activity instead of one lol. They also do the occasional hike to the creek or trip to the school library. The kids who show academic readiness get pulled aside for a few minutes during play time for time with a teacher every once in a while. Whenever I go in at play time, there's 30 kids playing, and 3 sitting at a little table together with a teacher practicing letters with crayons or sandpaper. It's all very non-stressful for them. Also, for their free play they have access to regular toys, and also Montessori materials, which the teacher will help them with if they choose to play with it.
They really are willing to work with us but we're counting down to a month of standardized testing, which starts in third grade. I don't think this is a coincidence.
A month of standardized testing??!!?! Good god. I'm so sorry. I need to post that to the Private vs. Public school thread.
That's pretty much exactly what my 4 year old's preschool does. Of course, I picked a play-based preschool. There's other preschools that are more academic, but most of the ones I've seen in my neck of the woods are playbased. The heavily academic ones seem to have gone out of style.
A normal day for my kid is arrive, free play, circle time where they read stories, sing songs and talk about things like the calendar and the weather, go outside to play, eat lunch, take a nap, eat a snack, have craft / music / Spanish time, go outside to play, and then get ready to go home. So there's *2* thirty minute periods of structured activity instead of one lol. They also do the occasional hike to the creek or trip to the school library. The kids who show academic readiness get pulled aside for a few minutes during play time for time with a teacher every once in a while. Whenever I go in at play time, there's 30 kids playing, and 3 sitting at a little table together with a teacher practicing letters with crayons or sandpaper. It's all very non-stressful for them. Also, for their free play they have access to regular toys, and also Montessori materials, which the teacher will help them with if they choose to play with it.
Sounds like a brilliant preschool, glad the more academic ones are going out of style, can't bear the thought of little kiddies having to sit down for too long doing worksheets and crap like that. A bunch of the kids my daughter is friends with are writing their own names when they're drawing/colouring, don't know if they've been helped with that by the teachers or just learnt from home like my kid (she is obsessed with writing her name, writes it on everything!). They tend to teach things as it comes up while the kids play - I like to send my kid in with questions to ask like how are kangaroos born
I teach in an after school program at Houston public elementary. The school is one of the better public schools, so they seem to have more homework than some of our programs.We spend the first 45mins of our program either outside or in the gym, then snack, then homework time.
My kinders have 10mins of reading, and we look over their "worksheets" just to keep tabs on who is starting to fall behind. They are mostly letter based, with some basic 1-20 math ones thrown in.
1st graders have 20mins of reading and they typically have a word/math worksheet that almost always requires cutting and pasting things. They just finished with a simple science fair project this week. 10mins for the worksheet + 10 for reading and they are done
2nd has 20mins of reading and they have both word and math workbooks and weekly spelling words. They do not take spelling tests but rather have 4 different ways to practice the words over the week. 20mins for them if they buckle down and do it + 20 for the reading.
My 3rd-5th graders have 30mins of reading, plus the two workbooks(vocab and math for them) and typically an extra math sheet. My oldest kids have weekly papers they compose over the week. I have a few in the gifted math and we are doing number lines, base 10 and long division at the moment. They take anywhere from 45mins to and hour and half, the longer it takes the more likely they have chatting with friends. Any long than about an hour and I move them to a single table so they can finish.
I feel like they have a manageable and average amount of work, but we get it all done by 5pm or so, so when my parents pick up, homework is done. I don't know how some of my older kid's would manage if homework wasn't done by 5 and they had to do it and dinner/relax.
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority or not but I'm 110 percent against homework until they are in middle school and high school..and even then, the load should be light. They are in school from roughly about 8-3, give or take...and then to add more to the load at home, when they should be totally free of their "work", is ludicrous. It's like their just grooming them to be working stiffs and taking all the joy out of learning. When do they get to pursue their passions?
My 18-year-old son was unable to keep up with his passion for art due to a very heavy homework load that began in 3rd grade. They took away art in his school and then gave him no time to pursue it, since he was doing homework every afternoon after school. I kick myself for not fighting that back then. I learned my lesson though and now have my daughter in a non-homework school that supports family/fun/hobby time when school is over at 3. She, along with the rest of her class, are doing beautifully in reading, writing, math, and other subjects WITHOUT homework.
I live in Oregon and I know of two rural public schools that have a no homework policy (both are not far from Portland). I was so thrilled to hear about this! Apparently some parents were upset by this but I would be celebrating for those lucky kids! Good for those principals! I hope this trend spreads.
I can't keep up with my 6 year old's homework. At first it was 10 minutes a night (worksheets) in addition to 20 minutes of reading. That seemed reasonable. Now the "special projects" have begun, and if we don't keep up on everything we get behind and then have to work for an hour or two in one night to catch up. For example, this week they had to do a big math project that involved creating something (that they couldn't do alone), plus illustrate their own storybook, plus do Valentine cards for 30 kids (which they were required to hand write). And still had the usual 10 minute worksheet and 20 minutes reading. We did almost nothing, because our time was taken up with crying and whining and threatening, and finally I gave up. He just felt so overwhelmed by the amount of it, that he shut down and wouldn't do anything. I have a full-time job and don't have time to do my 6 years old's homework every night. Is this normal? Does anyone else have this much work? I know some people have kids that can do it easily on their own, but mine cannot. He's working on grade level, but just barely. He can write one or two sentences easily, but not a whole story, and he can't read the directions on his homework by himself.
You gotta pump the breaks. This is a 6 year old?
It sounds like the kid is overwhelmed by your being overwhelmed.
Look, if we let kindergarten stress us out, we have a long road in front of us.
Look I'm not in your shoes, but to me it's simple. Support/encourage/structure for what you believe is a reasonable time window for school-related work every evening. Maybe that's...idk, 45 minutes.
Within that 45 minutes, define what is a reasonable portion for you to be personally involved and directly helping. Maybe that's...whatever, half of that time.
And then you do that. You have now taken control. If some valentines cards don't get done...what? What's going to happen? Teach you're kid to prioritize what's more important. Teach your kid to agree upon a reasonable approach to homework every night and then usually stick to that approach.
If you were to do this, and the teacher some weeks later approaches you and says "well these valentines cards weren't done" that would be a great chance to have a constructive discussion with her about the approach you are taking and why. And then maybe you guys can have a meeting of the minds.
A big thing here is you can't set yourself up to be the student. HE is the student. Even at this young age, entrust him with that status and see what happens. Make small adjustments as you go. But you gotta let kids go out there and figure things out sometimes.
Although my kids are in high school and college, I'll go ahead and chime in. Prior to second grade, it was reading and math for a total of thirty minutes per night. Second grade had two projects as I recall that were mostly completed at school, one involving researching a favorite exotic animal and the other a very simple diorama.
Third grade nearly brought me to my knees. The first two did okay, but it was a lot of work. The third child had a displaced G&T teacher, who was bound and determined she was going to teach to that standard regardless of whether or not the kids could handle it. I will admit that my youngest learned a lot that year, but I wish it hadn't come at the expense of frequently missed recesses (to finish incomplete homework) and a nightly emotional breakdown. Way too much too soon!
His jewel of a fourth grade teacher, who came from a family of boys and had a couple herself, came as sweet relief. She totally got it and helped us all recover from the previous year's nightmare, and his fifth grade teacher was great as well. But, third grade? Lord help me, I never, ever want to experience anything like that again.
Middle school (sixth-eighth grade) was when homework really set in and required a commitment from everyone to ensure the time and tools were available to get it done.
None. Homework was done away with in our elementary and middle school. In middle school you bring home anything you were not able to complete in school. For DD that meant once. I am a fan.
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