How much unstructured play time does your MCPS kindergartner have during the school day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They get 20 minutes of unstructured play at recess. That is it.

Honestly, what you’ve heard is true. There is SO much material to cover that the kids go from worksheet to Chromebook to worksheet to Chromebook for most of the day. I have a kid in K this year and there is pretty much zero unstructured play during the day. I think it would b impossible to work that in.

Wait, the kindergarteners use the Chromebooks, too? That seems unnecessary.

dP but true in our school too—they do math games on them a couple of times a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ES K (rockville cluster) did have some unstructured play time. The classroom my child was in had a small kitchen area, a rice table, and an area with magnatiles and other blocks. It was part of a rotation that included a literacy center. Not sure how long they got or if it was daily, but I loved that they had some play time besides recess.

+1 This was my child’s experience in kindergarten at a Title 1 school in Silver Spring.

Interesting. We are at a non-title I School, non-focus school and have none of this. I asked the teacher and was told that the curriculum is very academic and that that is not something she is able to do. I’ll bet you it comes down to our school’s principal not allowing it. I wish they would replace her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Also that should read 40 mins recess, not 4!
It is very structured. My kid likes it (and is on the older side, which I think helps), but I know a bunch of families whose kids are having a hard time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Thanks, that's helpful. My daughter is an October baby, so she'll be doing junior K at her preschool and will be almost 6 when she starts kindergarten. Maybe that alleviates some of the issues with a more structured day ... don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son has “discovery centers” at the end of the day at an upcounty ES but I don’t know if they have time for it every day. They have 35 minutes for recess. I will say that the new principal of RCES is fantastic. I worked for her for a few years and she was one of the best administrators I have had. She’s slowly changing the culture at RCES and I think for the better, according to my friends who work there now.

I have children at RCES. Our new principal seems very nice and I have definitely noticed that a number of new policies have been implemented this year to improve things from school employees’ perspectives. That seems to be the difference between our new principal and the previous one; he was primarily interested in the kids, while she seems to be making a genuine effort to boost employee morale. The only change that seems to benefit the kids was that homework was modestly reduced for lower grades this year. Otherwise, the changes all seem to benefit staff rather than students - but don’t take that the wrong way because nothing adversarial has happened. I certainly don’t blame the principal for trying to win over the staff first, before making changes that will really affect the kids. It’s a smart strategy.

Back to the OP’s question...there is very little unstructured play time. Last year there was a new initiative at RCES to have each home room teacher give her class extra unstructured free play time on the one day a week that the class had no specials. The idea was to give teachers and students a chance to see each other in a new light in a relaxed setting and get to know each other better. I was a fan because there is so little of that. I’m realizing that I haven’t heard anything about it this year, so maybe they’ve discontinued it? I think kindergarteners have more free play than any other grade because they still have centers. Today’s kindergarten is what first grade was 30 years ago. First grade is now actually quite rigorous. I wouldn’t say that kids have tons of homework, but yes, they will have some, even in K. Recess and lunch are each 35 minutes for all grades. RCES may become much less overcrowded. While there are 7 classes per grade for 2nd - 5th, this year, for the first time in years, there are only 6 classes per grade for K and 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son has “discovery centers” at the end of the day at an upcounty ES but I don’t know if they have time for it every day. They have 35 minutes for recess. I will say that the new principal of RCES is fantastic. I worked for her for a few years and she was one of the best administrators I have had. She’s slowly changing the culture at RCES and I think for the better, according to my friends who work there now.

I have children at RCES. Our new principal seems very nice and I have definitely noticed that a number of new policies have been implemented this year to improve things from school employees’ perspectives. That seems to be the difference between our new principal and the previous one; he was primarily interested in the kids, while she seems to be making a genuine effort to boost employee morale. The only change that seems to benefit the kids was that homework was modestly reduced for lower grades this year. Otherwise, the changes all seem to benefit staff rather than students - but don’t take that the wrong way because nothing adversarial has happened. I certainly don’t blame the principal for trying to win over the staff first, before making changes that will really affect the kids. It’s a smart strategy.

Back to the OP’s question...there is very little unstructured play time. Last year there was a new initiative at RCES to have each home room teacher give her class extra unstructured free play time on the one day a week that the class had no specials. The idea was to give teachers and students a chance to see each other in a new light in a relaxed setting and get to know each other better. I was a fan because there is so little of that. I’m realizing that I haven’t heard anything about it this year, so maybe they’ve discontinued it? I think kindergarteners have more free play than any other grade because they still have centers. Today’s kindergarten is what first grade was 30 years ago. First grade is now actually quite rigorous. I wouldn’t say that kids have tons of homework, but yes, they will have some, even in K. Recess and lunch are each 35 minutes for all grades. RCES may become much less overcrowded. While there are 7 classes per grade for 2nd - 5th, this year, for the first time in years, there are only 6 classes per grade for K and 1st.

Thanks, that's super helpful! Do you know why the number of classes went down for K and 1st? Is it a peculiarity of this year's kids, or something structural? My understanding is that we're still several years away from splitting some of the kids off to go to Dufief.

[Anonymous]

I really don’t know for sure why enrollment has fallen, but I suspect that it has to do with the timing of when RCES was named a Blue Ribbon School. I believe that the largest single class that RCES has ever had would have been the first K class after the Blue Ribbon designation. They are now 5th graders, so a lot of their younger siblings would probably be in grade 2 or 3. I think that at the time of the Blue Ribbon designation, people decided not to pay for private in elementary if their neighborhood school was so good, but the more time that passes since the award, the less relevant it seems to parents who are enrolling their kids in elementary school for the first time, plus they’re hearing how overcrowded it is and that’s influencing their decision. This is just a guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Thanks, that's helpful. My daughter is an October baby, so she'll be doing junior K at her preschool and will be almost 6 when she starts kindergarten. Maybe that alleviates some of the issues with a more structured day ... don't know.

Yes, having a kid on the older side will help! And because many summer birthday kids are held back, and Oct bday is usually middle of the pack in terms of age. If you are planning on using aftercare, it’s worth checking in on how much unstructured time kids have there. At ours they have a lot of outdoor/choice time, which helps a lot.

[Anonymous]

Homework in K seems to be on a school by school basis. During orientation, the principal stated that there was no homework in K - I assumed that was countywide but I guess that is not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES K (rockville cluster) did have some unstructured play time. The classroom my child was in had a small kitchen area, a rice table, and an area with magnatiles and other blocks. It was part of a rotation that included a literacy center. Not sure how long they got or if it was daily, but I loved that they had some play time besides recess.

We had this too, so it seems to vary by school. My child has 30 minutes of centers at the end of each day where they choose from housekeeping, art, sand table, legos, etc. But each child has to pick an activity and stay at it (I'm guessing the teacher thinks otherwise it would be chaos with one teacher and 26 kids running around the room). Most MCPS schools have one recess and one special each day.

[Anonymous]

My daughter in a Rockville kindergarten class and absolutely loves it, but there is not much unstructured play. They get free choice centers, with a kitchen, Legos etc. at the end of the day plus recess. They also take lots of movement breaks with silly games and dances throughout the day. While she does do a lot of work sheets, she also brings home small art projects, Little math games etc. Even though it is structured, they do have a lot of un! They had an apple day where they did Apple science projects, cooking, art projects and murals, and all kinds of fun stations. They did a similar day with pumpkins. In December they did a fun stem afternoon about the gingerbread man and made boats with their teams out of aluminum foil and other things and then got to see if their boat would carry their gingerbread man across their “river”. She does have homework almost every day, but it is usually only 2 to 3 minutes. Sometimes it will be one story math problem, other days it will say practice writing some sight words, other days it’s just to tell us about a special event that happened at school. My daughter is one of the youngest in the class, so I was a little nervous about it, but have been happily surprised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES K (rockville cluster) did have some unstructured play time. The classroom my child was in had a small kitchen area, a rice table, and an area with magnatiles and other blocks. It was part of a rotation that included a literacy center. Not sure how long they got or if it was daily, but I loved that they had some play time besides recess.

How long ago was that? Recently?

Our FOCUS K class definitely has no play kitchen and no rice table. Can you imagine the mess if the K Teachers tried to have a rice table??

We do have blocks and Lincoln Logs but the kids only play with them at indoor recess. Are kids at other schools allowed to play with blocks during the actual school day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Also that should read 40 mins recess, not 4!
It is very structured. My kid likes it (and is on the older side, which I think helps), but I know a bunch of families whose kids are having a hard time.

What MCPS ES has 40 minutes of recess?? I thought it was system-wide 20 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Also that should read 40 mins recess, not 4!
It is very structured. My kid likes it (and is on the older side, which I think helps), but I know a bunch of families whose kids are having a hard time.

What MCPS ES has 40 minutes of recess?? I thought it was system-wide 20 minutes.

They added time into the school day for lunch/recess and schools could decide how much time to add to lunch and recess. The minimum time for recess should be 30 minutes but that would mean lunch would be 40 minutes. Some schools do 35/35 and others do 30 for lunch and 40 for recess. Which school only has 20 minutes and was that communicated to you by the school or by your kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my kindergartener’s schedule:
- 90 mins reading workshop
- 60 mins math workshop
- 30 mins writing workshop
- 30 mins lunch, 4 mins recess
- social studies/science
- specials 4 days a week and on other day extended social studies/science

Other than recess, it’s all structured. Really glad my kid just missed the cutoff sonwas almost six when starting.

Forgot to answer your question. We have monthly homeowner projects, often requiring research/help from parents. Many just skip and seems to be no consequence. No nightly HW.

Also that should read 40 mins recess, not 4!
It is very structured. My kid likes it (and is on the older side, which I think helps), but I know a bunch of families whose kids are having a hard time.

What MCPS ES has 40 minutes of recess?? I thought it was system-wide 20 minutes.

They added time into the school day for lunch/recess and schools could decide how much time to add to lunch and recess. The minimum time for recess should be 30 minutes but that would mean lunch would be 40 minutes. Some schools do 35/35 and others do 30 for lunch and 40 for recess. Which school only has 20 minutes and was that communicated to you by the school or by your kid?

I am PP and our school only does 30 mins for lunch so there is 40 for recess. Maybe some schools have a shorter recess but allow choice time at the end of tve day for 20 mins? Our school does not have play areas for choice time—it’s very academic.