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

[Anonymous]

If your child needs play they are not ready for K and hold them back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: 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.

Hi PP. Which Rockville elem? We are in Rockville and my ds starts k next year. Wondering if were zoned for the same one- I hope so because that sounds like a great K experience!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: 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.

Hi PP. Which Rockville elem? We are in Rockville and my ds starts k next year. Wondering if were zoned for the same one- I hope so because that sounds like a great K experience!

My daughter is at Cashell. We've been very happy with it so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child needs play they are not ready for K and hold them back.

Not true.
K teacher of 20 years

[Anonymous]

Definitely unstructired play if you mean "centers" where they rotate you around, the child has this in kidnergarden

[Anonymous]

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.

This has been our experience too, also in the Rockville cluster. 30 minutes recess plus “play” built into rotations throughout the day. When I volunteered in the classroom, kids moved through activities like copying words, doing puzzles, cutting and pasting, house keeping corner, and teacher-led bingo (learning letter names and sounds). Most of the day was certainly focused on more academic centers, but some centers were open-ended and there was a “choice” time built into the schedule.

This year in first grade, there’s still some time for legos and Lincoln logs (and writing about the things they create).

They’ve also been moving away from homework other than encouraging nightly reading.

I’m definitely in the play-is-good camp, but both of my young-for-grade boys handled K in MCPS we’ll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your child needs play they are not ready for K and hold them back.

Not true.
K teacher of 20 years

Thank you. People need unstructured time to explore and learn, regardless of age.

[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.

This has been our experience too, also in the Rockville cluster. 30 minutes recess plus “play” built into rotations throughout the day. When I volunteered in the classroom, kids moved through activities like copying words, doing puzzles, cutting and pasting, house keeping corner, and teacher-led bingo (learning letter names and sounds). Most of the day was certainly focused on more academic centers, but some centers were open-ended and there was a “choice” time built into the schedule.

This year in first grade, there’s still some time for legos and Lincoln logs (and writing about the things they create).

They’ve also been moving away from homework other than encouraging nightly reading.

I’m definitely in the play-is-good camp, but both of my young-for-grade boys handled K in MCPS we’ll.

Which elem school in Rockville is this? Sounds great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely unstructired play if you mean "centers" where they rotate you around, the child has this in kidnergarden

They do not have this in my chikd’s MCPS K class.

[Anonymous]

Our Focus school in Silver Spring has unstructured play time. My Kindergartener was just talking about it the other day. She's having a great experience so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child needs play they are not ready for K and hold them back.

Play is children's work. It is not only a developmental necessity; it is critical to development.

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik H. Erikson

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your child needs play they are not ready for K and hold them back.

Not true.
K teacher of 20 years

Thank you. People need unstructured time to explore and learn, regardless of age.

+1 PP is a dope and the reason we have 7 year olds in kindergarten classes.

[Anonymous]

Our focus school has 35 minutes for lunch and 35 minutes for recess. And there is some time for free choice in the afternoon. My kids both did very well with the routine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our Focus school in Silver Spring has unstructured play time. My Kindergartener was just talking about it the other day. She's having a great experience so far.

Which one?

[Anonymous]

Well, centers is not exactly unstructured play, is it?