Are DCPS PK3-4 programs more play-based or academic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

+1 The "academics" in PK is singing "Every letter makes a sound; the A says ahh". Centers are play. Small groups are play. It's not worksheets and getting rapped on the knuckles for fidgeting. The people railing against an overly academic PK3 experience in DCPS it are tilting at windmills. But then again, they're also welcome to put their money where their mouth is and find a forest school or Waldorf academy; you're under no obligation to send your kid to DCPS for preK if the idea of them seeing a poster with the alphabet on it makes you shudder.

- Experience at 2 different Title I DCPS schools for ECE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

Sorry but you are deluding yourself and trying to justify things. You can’t see outside your T1 bubble.

Go see some of the popular charters discussed on here. There is no academic math or literacy blocks or daily worksheets or HW. Parents would have an uprising over a schedule like this.

Which charters? For ECE these days it seems to be mostly about the immersion schools.

Immersion charters
SWS
Two Rivers
Creative Minds

I’m sure there are other charters but above are the ones that come to mind.

i’m sure some of the non-T1 DCPS schools. But I don’t know if the mandate from central with all these crazy academic blocks and groups applies to only T1 or all DCPS schools. Maybe teachers on here can comment on that.

SWS is a citywide school, not a charter.

Two Rivers and Creative Minds have been having a lot of issues and have largely fallen out of favor. Last year Two Rivers 4th made PK3 offers to all but 13 on the waitlist. Creative Minds made an offer to every applicant. There are many threads on this topic.

Waitlist does not define if a school is good or not. TW and CM may be weaker in upper grades but ECE is good.

Definitely worth trying to understand why there has been such a huge decline in interest. It really seems bad all around. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1265725.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

You’re misunderstanding what we (teachers and some parents) are saying though. You can learn counting through play, it doesn’t have to be at the table, that’s more formal at not developmentally appropriate for pre-k.

What’s off-putting is SOME parents getting defensive without trying to understand because you are taking everything personally.

I have read so many other teachers say play is learning -especially guided play and a rich environment.

That’s why great reggio programs for example thrive. Play based doesn’t mean a lack of pre-academic skills being taught -it’s learning that through the environment and the teacher’s expertise.

Your experience is not wrong, what teachers are warning about is this is becoming worse and more tech is involved. A happy child is wonderful and important. But so is ensuring developmentally appropriate practices. Especially for at risk students -who are getting iPads and utilizing tech at a younger age than even 2 years ago.

All in all I understand it’s a touchy subject. A little small group isn’t the devil, it’s the amount many schools are starting to require. You should not be seeing kids for 20-30 min a day or have play be a short part of the day.

+1

Some of you all have no clue what’s going on in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

There tends not to be two in PK3 because it's hard to work around nap, and it means more time spent putting on jackets.

[Anonymous]

This is an interesting convo as someone with older kids. They went to a a title 1 for PK, the curriculum shifted between them so the older kid had significantly more academics ("play plans," more written words worksheet work). They both had significant playtime, and they both LOVED PK. It was a huge highlight of their DCPS experience. We had issues later on, but I really have nothing negative to say about PK, either academic or almost solely play. The teachers were stars.

PK is something DCPS does really well IMO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

You’re misunderstanding what we (teachers and some parents) are saying though. You can learn counting through play, it doesn’t have to be at the table, that’s more formal at not developmentally appropriate for pre-k.

What’s off-putting is SOME parents getting defensive without trying to understand because you are taking everything personally.

I have read so many other teachers say play is learning -especially guided play and a rich environment.

That’s why great reggio programs for example thrive. Play based doesn’t mean a lack of pre-academic skills being taught -it’s learning that through the environment and the teacher’s expertise.

Your experience is not wrong, what teachers are warning about is this is becoming worse and more tech is involved. A happy child is wonderful and important. But so is ensuring developmentally appropriate practices. Especially for at risk students -who are getting iPads and utilizing tech at a younger age than even 2 years ago.

All in all I understand it’s a touchy subject. A little small group isn’t the devil, it’s the amount many schools are starting to require. You should not be seeing kids for 20-30 min a day or have play be a short part of the day.

+1

Some of you all have no clue what’s going on in DCPS.

But this is not completely shifting the goalposts from there's no play to this is a slow avalanche to all ipads and tech.

And I would very much like our school to use less screens. I don't think it outweighs the pros but I absolutely agree that screentime usage is far too high.

But now we've moved from sitting at a table to learn numbers for 15 minutes a couple times a day is terrible (which I am going to disagree with and honestly was something they were doing at our entirely screen free high end daycare) to it's because it's a sign of something worse.

One thing that's being dismissed is people have different ways of learning. It's why Waldorf is great for some kids and absolutely terrible for others. You're trying to make underfunded programs work for at least 18 kids in one class across the city with some general requirements.

But yes, absolutely less screens. No screens but definitely less screens. And I assume everyone screaming about them also prohibits their kids from watching screens during the week at home.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

No one said PP experience is wrong but it certainly is more academic than play based and it certainly is not all day play based. If parents are OK with a heavy academic day, that is fine but let’s be clear that this is not play based focused. It is academic focused.

There are roughly six hours in a school day and taking out nap and lunch that's four. So we're at a max 50/50 academic and play and it seems like even the academic schedule is less than 50 percent play. Seems more balanced than academic focused.

I get everyone wants the idyllic Scandi model but they have like a 1:5 ratio of kids to teachers, an entire year of parental leave, significantly more days off, and a social welfare system that allows for more free time and relaxing. I would love to have that. We don't. Happy to pay more in taxes for that but most people in this country don't want to. The focus of those countries early childhood are the core tenants of social welfare and collaboration. Someone implementing that in a US public school would be yelled at and called a commie.

By age 8 everyone is screaming that if there kid isn't testing in the 99th percentile they're screwed and it's all the schools fault. It's an impossible system. But it's not a uniquely DCPS impossible system.

Sorry but you are deluding yourself and trying to justify things. You can’t see outside your T1 bubble.

Go see some of the popular charters discussed on here. There is no academic math or literacy blocks or daily worksheets or HW. Parents would have an uprising over a schedule like this.

Which charters? For ECE these days it seems to be mostly about the immersion schools.

Immersion charters
SWS
Two Rivers
Creative Minds

I’m sure there are other charters but above are the ones that come to mind.

i’m sure some of the non-T1 DCPS schools. But I don’t know if the mandate from central with all these crazy academic blocks and groups applies to only T1 or all DCPS schools. Maybe teachers on here can comment on that.

SWS *is* a DCPS school. Same rules as the IB ones. No idea if there are different rules for T1s than not, but certainly Brent isn't being forced to do crazy academics that SWS is allowed to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

L-T has two recesses throughout ECE. There's a separate, fenced off ECE playground, so they can use that when older kids are outside during their lunches and then (typically) have the run of the playground for their extra recess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

There tends not to be two in PK3 because it's hard to work around nap, and it means more time spent putting on jackets.

Some ECEs have extended time outside after drop off in the morning, or go outside on the playground before dismissal before pickup, allowing additional time outside, in addition to the mid-day recess before nap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

My kids go to Janney. They had a second recess through 2nd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what schools DCPS or charter there are two resseses? Only came across ones with only one 30/40 min max.

DHES
TKES

Outside time was one of the things we used to trim down our PK3 lottery list way back in the day. I'm definitely in favor of as much play as they can squeeze in, but not to the level of some of these posters who seem to be afraid their kid might learn something while they're not in the room.

[Anonymous]

I much prefer one long recess rather than two shorter ones.

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Anonymous wrote:It is not 10 minutes of academics. It is a couple of blocks so 1-2 hours?

Why are the adults running the show not looking at the research or understanding what is developmentally appropriate? Same with so much screen use so early in DCPS?

The big picture is that I don’t trust DCPS to know what is best for my kid. They obviously are not following best practices. I mean it doesn’t get any easier than ECE. If they don’t have best practices for this, there is little confidence IMO that they will for higher stakes in upper grades.

And the majority of parents on here at T1 schools who are actually making excuses and supporting this are not telling you is that they are playing the lottery every year for better schools. Things get worst past ECE.

Oh FFS. I very much doubt it's 1-2 hours. Maaaaaybe 1 hour, total, over a day in PK4 when-- remember-- most of the kids are 5 years old by the end.

T1 parents are not playing the lottery *because* of this. I was a T1 parent and I was 1000% fine with my kid learning letters and numbers, and I thought our T1 preschool was terrific in part because they taught some of the kids to read. I was playing the lottery for a better middle school.

No one I know that has played the lottery has done so for ECE, we have people coming in for ECE and K, it's entirely for MS and HS.

Two of six hours is just lunch/recess/nap and another hour or so is specials usually. So that assumes the spend 2/3 of the remaining time sitting at tables doing worksheets and if teachers can get four year olds to sit still for two straight hours I mean bless them I guess.

Absolutely you can. It’s never 2-3 hours straight. It’s broken into chunks.

Please provide a schedule that includes the mandated amount of time for lunch and recess, plus specials and a 90-minute nap, and all transitions, and still includes 2-3 hours of seat work. Don't forget potty breaks!

Eh, I’ll humor you.


8:20 -8:45 Breakfast + writing practice (5)

8:45-9-15 Morning meeting and read aloud/whole group lesson (20 min)
9:15-10:00 Centers and small groups
(15- 25 min per kid/ 10-15 min with each teacher). (25)

10-10:30 Recess

10:35 -11:05 - whole group math lesson (30)

11:05 - 1:50- Centers and small groups again (25)

11:50-12:20 Lunch
12:20-1:50 NAP
1:50 -2:00 Heggerty (10)
2:00-2:05Snack
2:05- 2:20 Literacy Whole Group (15)
2:20-3:05 Specials


There’s your 2+ hours. Also FYI my old school didn’t give the real schedule to parents in terms of how long small groups were and whole groups.

Bathroom is in centers. Nope no transition times except recess. And PK 4 the literacy block is 30 min longer. Yes snack was really 5 minutes.

Wow where is the play time??? Just at the centers if kids are not in a small groups. That is it?

This is horrendous.

I'm genuinely asking, have you see most DCPS PK classrooms? What other play are they doing? Our kids went on walks when it was nice and had a lot of extended recess also when it was nice, but 18 kids in a classroom is not going to allow for a ton of large active play.

If you are asking this question then you don’t realize that kids can play all day in a classroom. I’m the PP with the older kid who couldn’t read till 1st.

Our ECE classrooms had 4 centers on the periphery of the classroom and the kids would spend 40 minutes or so playing at the centers. Then they rotate to another center and play for 40 minutes. Sometimes they get to pick what centers they wanted. During this time, the teacher would walk around, observe, make some suggestions or ask questions maybe. Above was maybe 1/2 the day. So lots of times, the kids at each centers had to work together and share and play together because the teacher couldn’t be at every center every second.

They also had a few tables in the middle of the classroom with 4 chairs and a long table with lots of chairs where kids would draw, color, paint, do kinetic sand, do art. There was a reading area and kids could sit and just look and flip thru books. Then there was circle and story time.

There was also whole class fun projects like they all worked to build an aquarium (construction paper, tracing animals and coloring) when they were learning about the ocean and animals in it. They set up a broadcasting station and made cameras and mics. They interviewed kids and their thoughts about a topic and made videos for parents. They went outside to look at clouds and draw their own clouds and talked about rain. The school also had a garden so the kids did gardening and planting. One project the kids did was a family tree so we sent in pictures and the kids made a collage and then went up to do a talk and presentation about their family.

Above are just a few examples but you get the point. No one was sitting down doing worksheets or being drilled additions. There was no math or literacy block. There was no pulling kids out in small groups from centers to do what? The teacher incorporated content and letters, numbers into the projects and what they were playing with at the centers. Some centers I remember was kitchen, magnatiles, ice cream stand selling ice cream, etc…

Those 2 years was just so much fun and my kid was fortunate to have it. He has lots of great memories from then and I pictures.

I'm the PP and that's our T1 experience. The person I respond to said it's terrible there was no play but centers. What you're describing are centers.

But your schedule only has 2 blocks of centers in the whole day and in those blocks are small groups also. Other blocks are academics.

So no your schedule is not play based the whole day and even in the center blocks there are kids who are not playing if there are small groups.

Do you know what those small groups are doing? This went from there's no play! To there's not enough play! To sure there's play but there's also some academics and that's bad period!

Specials and recess are also usually play.

There's a weird subset that's basically like if my kid learns to count in school that's bad and I agree with a different PP that's kind of odd. None of it is like the school in Matilda. It's basically sure you have play and then there's also some learning. And if your kid hates that I get it and that's OK it has no future bearing, but when people are telling you their kids are happy and socially thriving in school and people are yelling at you that your experience is wrong it's pretty off-putting.

You’re misunderstanding what we (teachers and some parents) are saying though. You can learn counting through play, it doesn’t have to be at the table, that’s more formal at not developmentally appropriate for pre-k.

What’s off-putting is SOME parents getting defensive without trying to understand because you are taking everything personally.

I have read so many other teachers say play is learning -especially guided play and a rich environment.

That’s why great reggio programs for example thrive. Play based doesn’t mean a lack of pre-academic skills being taught -it’s learning that through the environment and the teacher’s expertise.

Your experience is not wrong, what teachers are warning about is this is becoming worse and more tech is involved. A happy child is wonderful and important. But so is ensuring developmentally appropriate practices. Especially for at risk students -who are getting iPads and utilizing tech at a younger age than even 2 years ago.

All in all I understand it’s a touchy subject. A little small group isn’t the devil, it’s the amount many schools are starting to require. You should not be seeing kids for 20-30 min a day or have play be a short part of the day.

+1

Some of you all have no clue what’s going on in DCPS.

But this is not completely shifting the goalposts from there's no play to this is a slow avalanche to all ipads and tech.

And I would very much like our school to use less screens. I don't think it outweighs the pros but I absolutely agree that screentime usage is far too high.

But now we've moved from sitting at a table to learn numbers for 15 minutes a couple times a day is terrible (which I am going to disagree with and honestly was something they were doing at our entirely screen free high end daycare) to it's because it's a sign of something worse.

One thing that's being dismissed is people have different ways of learning. It's why Waldorf is great for some kids and absolutely terrible for others. You're trying to make underfunded programs work for at least 18 kids in one class across the city with some general requirements.

But yes, absolutely less screens. No screens but definitely less screens. And I assume everyone screaming about them also prohibits their kids from watching screens during the week at home.

I don’t endorse Waldorf because it’s based in eugenics. Montessori is also one that is not entirely play based so that is why it doesn’t work for all children.

I hate that people try to cop out and say play doesn’t work for all children. That is the equivalent of saying ‘breathing doesn’t work for all children.’

You did not even read the comment the comment I agreed with.

It’s not 15 minutes of small group, that’s not an issue.
And underfunded? DC spends a lot on education, classrooms are underfunded because they waste money on trying to buy more iPads, cheap curriculum, and more useless central office and admin positions.

I was also a special education teacher for 30 years, just retired. I taught self contained the last 10. They (kids with disabilities and at risk kids) also need play, please do not perpetuate this. In fact things like Montessori were originally for kids in poverty and children with disabilities!

Play can reach every child, every single one. What you likely see not working is the environment, structure, and the teacher not working for the child.

One year, I had a mom tell me she thought I was nuts when I said I’d be doing play based learning with her non-speaking son. She wanted more of an ABA style. But she surely changed her tune, a year and a half later he was speaking. We worked on speech, letters, numbers, patterns, executive functioning skills, etc. through play and not at the table (unless he wanted to).

Am I saying okay will be a miracle for your child or they will be the next genius…nope! I am saying I structured the environment in a way I knew would support my students. I understand how to teach through play.

Play doesn’t mean zero ABC’s and 123’s.

I’m glad we at least agree about the tech!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I much prefer one long recess rather than two shorter ones.

That would be my preference too.
Do you happen to know what schools have one?