What is kindergarten like in MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Our K’er has official recess once a day, but they often go outside a second time. They also have classroom playtime. One thing I like is that they often start the day with an ‘active’ activity, such as jumping around to music while counting. My mom who was a K teacher said this is an excellent way to get to a different type of learner (and obviously fun and active).

[Anonymous]

In the beginning our kindergartener had a tough time with the long periods of time for math and reading every morning. My kid is used to it now. I love the Eureka math curriculum.

[Anonymous]

So much of this is school-by-school, from class sizes to number of times kids go outside a day (and the threshold for indoor recess).

In general, though, excpect very little direct instruction and a lot of group work in the early years. Kids move through "stations" for literacy and math, and a well-run classroom will mean the stations have some differentiation and also allow kids to use their mind/bodies in different ways.

So, if the current exercise is adding two-digit numbers, you might have one group doing simple worksheet, another group using popsicle stills to visualize the problem, and a group playing an active game at the Promethean Board where you use the giant touchscreen to "pop" the correct answer as it floats across the screen in a bubble. The final group would be meeting with the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chaos

Not at all! I have a third grader and a current kindergartner and both of them had incredibly well-run kindergarten classrooms (different teachers).

[Anonymous]

Bethesda Elementary sounds terrific with two recesses a day!? That's great. I think most schools just have the one, that is supposed to be 30 minutes but gets whittled down to 20/25 with all the time spent lining up etc.