[cheeky1178]

Anyone know of any towns in Hartford County still offering half day Kindergarten? We've got time yet before our lil one will be going into Kindergarten but it's something we'll consider before buying a house.

Thanks!
Dawn

[JayCT]

The major trend in education is to go with full-day kindergarten. This is because many students today go to pre-school programs prior to kindergarten and are prepared for a full day of activity by the time they enter school. I would encourage you to seek out one of those programs. Many towns offer them in schools for little or no cost.

That said I would not base my town selection on which one offers half-day kindergarten. I would urge you to consider more important things like community type (urban, suburban, rural), commuting distance to job and budget first. If you provide us with this information, it would help us direct you to a good town for your family. Jay

[AMSS]

Originally Posted by JayCT

The major trend in education is to go with full-day kindergarten. This is because many students today go to pre-school programs prior to kindergarten and are prepared for a full day of activity by the time they enter school. I would encourage you to seek out one of those programs. Many towns offer them in schools for little or no cost.

That said I would not base my town selection on which one offers half-day kindergarten. I would urge you to consider more important things like community type (urban, suburban, rural), commuting distance to job and budget first. If you provide us with this information, it would help us direct you to a good town for your family. Jay

Kids have done preschool and half day kindergarten for years which was sufficient. The trend is not because kids are READY for full day. The trend is because the expectations on kindergarten teachers has gotten so excessive that administrators feel the need to spread the day out rather than telling the state to lay off the "standards based assessments" that take up the teachers time. Many parents are receptive to this because it's less day care.

Anyway, the OP should realize that the state will likely mandate full day K eventually so her search may be irrelevant.

[Lalalally]

Even my smallish town switched to full-day a few years ago, so I would imagine most are following that schedule these days. I LOVED half day when my kids were little. It was a really nice way for ALL of us to ease into that type of schedule. Lol! Times change though...

[Lalalally]

Originally Posted by JayCT

The major trend in education is to go with full-day kindergarten. This is because many students today go to pre-school programs prior to kindergarten and are prepared for a full day of activity by the time they enter school. I would encourage you to seek out one of those programs. Many towns offer them in schools for little or no cost.

That said I would not base my town selection on which one offers half-day kindergarten. I would urge you to consider more important things like community type (urban, suburban, rural), commuting distance to job and budget first. If you provide us with this information, it would help us direct you to a good town for your family. Jay

No offense, but seriously it's not because 4 or 5 year olds are more "prepared" for a full/solid school day of instruction and learning at that age, because most really aren't. Who cares if they already spent more than half their lives in daycare, as many have these days... Daycare (even if you want to call it pre-school) is an entirely different beast: it allows for, builds in, and encourages nap and play time into its normal schedule, which NEW kindergarten does NOT. The Almost-mandatory full- day kindergarten we are dealing with now exists ONLY because we "need" our kids to hit certain testing benchmarks 3 years down the road.... MANY (most?) 4/5 year olds are NOT emotionally prepared or physically equipped for these new rigors and expectations that we are willy/nilly flinging at them. It would be nice if you still had a choice as a parent whether or not you wanted to subject your 4/5 year old to this, and extra special if you were able to say ********** "testing" crap we are all being brainwashed into accepting...


Wow CD really doesn't like the phrase s c r e w t h i s. It's the second time it censored the word s c r e w as if it were the same as dropping the f-bomb. Lol!

[cheeky1178]

JayCT you are correct that is the current trend but it is one we strongly disagree with, thus my searching for towns that are still offering half day.

AMSS is correct too, as I just learned yesterday that CT does have some kind of new mandate coming into effect in 2017 that require's full time kindergarten. I don't know if that's just for the public schools or if private schools are impacted as well. I will have to research that since we feel strongly enough about it to consider private or homeschooling options in order to avoid it.

Thank you for the replies!

[Raider111]

The last of the Mohegans for half day kindergarten in the state that i know about was Newtown which just switched over to full day a couple of years ago.

[jax12479]

Is half day kindergarten typical in Hartford County? I don't recall kindergarten ever being half day in lower Fairfield county... Though a lot of parents choose to do an extra year of preschool if their child is only four years old when the school year starts.

[andthentherewere3]

Monroe also recently switched to full-day kindergarten due to state mandates. FFC suburbs were slower to switch than the cities. The only parents I know who were pleased were working parents, they rely on it for daycare. It was nothing to do with "preparedness" from preschools, kids have been going to preschool for decades now. My kids did both full and half day (we moved once) and I saw no difference in what they learned doing full-day over half-day. It can be really exhausting for 4 and 5 year olds doing full-day.

[parentologist]

In any town that has full day kindergarten, parents have the option to choose that their child attend only half the day, and then go home. They can choose at any time during the year for the child to stay for the entire day.

Don't you remember kindergarten? It was great! I wish it could have been full day, it was so much fun. Nowadays, they have the kids do some seatwork - numbers, letters, etc., but with the full day program, there's still plenty of play time. My son had full day, and loved it, even though he said he was exhausted by the end of the day.

I suspect that if you start your child off half day, that he'll be begging to stay for the full day very soon afterwards.

Of course, you do have the option of private kindergarten. Many daycare centers have private kindergarten. The children have the option of attending from before 7 AM until 6 PM, and during their long day, there is a half day of kindergarten academics. Perhaps you could find a daycare that would allow your child to pay just for that half day of kindergarten, and attend only kindergarten.

I'm being flippant. Really, your best bet for your child's social development, unless he has extraordinary special needs, is to settle in a nice town with good schools, and send your child to the local school district according to the usual schedule that the school offers. He'll fit in, he'll make friends with classmates, he'll be comfortable. Don't worry. Everyone does this with the first child - we plan, and stress, and want everything to be perfect. And it isn't. And it's okay. By the last child, we don't plan and stress about much, cause we're too busy with the older ones. And that kid usually turns out the best of all.