Expectations for kindergarten classroom?

[Anonymous]

Our fcps was disappointing and there wasn’t much teacher involvement. The teacher had the smartboard audio connected to her computer and whenever her computer received an email, there as a bong sound. She would ignore it for moments and the hustle over to look. Kind of like being I. A meeting with someone who checks every email. She was never fully engaged because of the disruptions. And the email was only one of the disruptions because it was a large class Very distracting and disruptive. With no real grading, and no homework to grade, the teachers are less and less engaged. It is sad.

[Anonymous]

And you think the no homework and grading policies are the teachers' doings? Clearly you don't understand how public school systems work. I am a teacher and my boss dictates nearly everything I do. There will be homework if she says so. Grading? Kindergarten students get P, I or N. That's it. I have no control over that and neither does anyone else. We have very little say over anything which is one main reason teachers are dissatisfied and leave the profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you sure the "video" is not announcements. Our school has a morning news show on the "TV" produced by kids and a teacher.

+1
In our school too. The kids in the upper grades get to be on "TV".

The lollipop thing might have been from the classroom "treasure box". In my kid's class, you get a (fake) coin when you (or the class) gets a compliment and you can use your accumulated "money" to buy things from the treasure box which does include innoculous things like lollipops, erasers, trinkets, etc.

You said letter tracing sheets. What is wrong with that?

And the teacher is typing a lot in class... as in trying to reply to emails while the kids are in engaged in free time? Was it a problem with getting the smartboard to work so the teacher was trying different things on the computer?

Sounds like you are getting a very limited one-sided story from your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

So you’re saying that in Chinese culture, kids commuting suicide over school pressure is totally okay because if they’re not the best they might as well be dead? You are a depraved human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

So you’re saying that in Chinese culture, kids commuting suicide over school pressure is totally okay because if they’re not the best they might as well be dead? You are a depraved human being.

In Asian cultures, this is considered acceptable. Things haven't changed. In asia (China, Japan, Korea) working crazy hours, or at the very least the appearance of working many hours, is part of the culture. People kill themselves over failure at work and school. It isn't just me, you're calling a billion plus people depraved. Why aren't you respecting our culture, like a global citizen should?

Keep in mind that in ancient China, anyone could take the imperial exams as a way to get out of poverty. http://www.chinasage.info/examinations.htm It was one of the first meritocracies in the world going back around 2,000 years.

The pressures back then continue today in the high stakes exams required for high school and college admissions, for example the Chinese gaokao:

You can see some of the sample questions here: http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post/19325/30-absolutely-insane-questions-from-china-s-gaokao-exam

Most of the rest of the world, the culture is sink or swim, thats what you have to compete against. There is no coddling, its tough love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you should send your child to a school in China, if the Chinese educational experience is so great.

Do you not see how ridiculous it is to do all these extracurriculars based on memorizing and then complain
that your child knows more and is bored??

No, I just wonder why the schools aren't more rigorous. Many asian parents wonder the same, and it is why they do all the educational extracurricular they do, and thats on top of having to memorize a couple thousand chinese characters. If these kids are able to do this kind of work, why does the school wait so long to differentiate beyond reading groups?

I'm just trying to maintain the level he was at when he finished Montessori kindergarten back in 2017, which for most kids in his class was roughly end of first grade beginning of second.

Why does it take so long to do a placement test, to figure out where the kids are? Just boot up iready and have at it. That could have been completed this week, after 9 full days of school.

He has to bring in a baggy with things to count on monday. They were doing (very) simple addition, at the end of last year in kindergarten! Yesterday they learned.... the letter I! Last year with the exception of one non-verbal child, every kid in the class could read and write at the very least simple sentences. I saw all the kids writing workshop stuff at an end of year presentation.

Even if I didn't send my kids elsewhere to keep up with his peers, I would still wonder why the heck this is so slow. Its not like I expect all the kids are going to go to a math kangeroo competition, but at an Oakton feeder school, most of the kids are capable of more than this.

First, your kid is “bored” now because you’ve pretaught him the grade level material before now. What did you think would happen when you put him into sunshine Academy? Second, you could a lot of easy things to enrich the baggie counting work. Count it by twos, threes, fours, etc. Show how tally marks work when counting by 5s, including the slash mark. If there are 12 beans, talk about division (how many would 4 people get if we divided them up easily) or fractions (how many would your best friend and you get if you each got half) or multiplication (what if we had double the number of beans)? Or probability (add a grain of rice in and ask what’s the probability or how likely is it you’d pick the rice versus a bean out of a sock?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

So you’re saying that in Chinese culture, kids commuting suicide over school pressure is totally okay because if they’re not the best they might as well be dead? You are a depraved human being.

In Asian cultures, this is considered acceptable. Things haven't changed. In asia (China, Japan, Korea) working crazy hours, or at the very least the appearance of working many hours, is part of the culture. People kill themselves over failure at work and school. It isn't just me, you're calling a billion plus people depraved. Why aren't you respecting our culture, like a global citizen should?

Keep in mind that in ancient China, anyone could take the imperial exams as a way to get out of poverty. http://www.chinasage.info/examinations.htm It was one of the first meritocracies in the world going back around 2,000 years.

The pressures back then continue today in the high stakes exams required for high school and college admissions, for example the Chinese gaokao:

You can see some of the sample questions here: http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post/19325/30-absolutely-insane-questions-from-china-s-gaokao-exam

Most of the rest of the world, the culture is sink or swim, thats what you have to compete against. There is no coddling, its tough love.

I feel perfectly comfortable saying that *people*, regardless of culture, who have no issue with people killing themselves over mediocre school performance are depraved. I mean, it's really disturbing that you'd be okay with your own child dying because he didn't do well enough in school.

[Anonymous]

NP here:
My K kid went to a fairly normal DMV preschool and is also bored with the worksheets.
When does APS start differentiating the kids who know how to decode and have some of the sight-words down from those who are unfamiliar with the alphabet?

Just curious. I"m afraid she's going to get in trouble in class when she's bored like I did...apple falling far from the tree and all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here:
My K kid went to a fairly normal DMV preschool and is also bored with the worksheets.
When does APS start differentiating the kids who know how to decode and have some of the sight-words down from those who are unfamiliar with the alphabet?

Just curious. I"m afraid she's going to get in trouble in class when she's bored like I did...apple falling far from the tree and all that.

Your kid has had four days of school. Four. It's way too early to get agitated about this.

[Anonymous]

My FCPS kindergartener went thru "kindergarten" at preschool last year because she has a fall birthday and missed the cutoff by a few weeks. She's probably doing a lot of the same worksheets as the OP and seems to just be going with the flow.

She got a little frustrated at preschool last year because she wasn't progressing at reading as much as her friends. We're using this downtime as a way to keep her practicing her sight words and getting a little more confident at reading.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has something to work on in kindergarten, whether it's academics, fine motor skills (handwriting, scissors, etc.), behavioral management, social skills, etc. If your kid is way ahead on academics, great, now figure out where they're not so ahead of the curve and put your attention to that instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here:
My K kid went to a fairly normal DMV preschool and is also bored with the worksheets.
When does APS start differentiating the kids who know how to decode and have some of the sight-words down from those who are unfamiliar with the alphabet?

Just curious. I"m afraid she's going to get in trouble in class when she's bored like I did...apple falling far from the tree and all that.

Either your child knows how to decode OR knows some sight words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here:
My K kid went to a fairly normal DMV preschool and is also bored with the worksheets.
When does APS start differentiating the kids who know how to decode and have some of the sight-words down from those who are unfamiliar with the alphabet?

Just curious. I"m afraid she's going to get in trouble in class when she's bored like I did...apple falling far from the tree and all that.

Your kid has had four days of school. Four. It's way too early to get agitated about this.

This. Things will ramp up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone has something to work on in kindergarten, whether it's academics, fine motor skills (handwriting, scissors, etc.), behavioral management, social skills, etc. If your kid is way ahead on academics, great, now figure out where they're not so ahead of the curve and put your attention to that instead.

This.

[Anonymous]

OP please remember your kid is not always the most accurate reporter, especially in K. It will likely get better over time but as people mentioned a video every day could mean 2 hours of Finding Nemo or 5 min of Go Noodle (my kid loves this too). But the good thing is your kid is giving you a lot of information which hopefully will last. My kid is in 4th and is still great at telling me what is going on. People assume I have some inside track at the school. Nope, just a chatty child. So as they say, trust buy verify. Don't make your DC feel bad if her info isn't 100% accurate but always check in with the teacher first. Or even ask her more questions. What are you watching? When are you watching it etc? In first grade my son said the music sub showed videos whenever he was there. Well it turns out it was School House Rock, which I love. We spent a week watching some DVDs I had. He still uses the School House Rocks cadence to count by 3s (me too and I am in my 40's)

The other thing is this. Kids come into K at all levels. There are kids who don't know the alphabet and kids who can read. My DS was bored in K. He and some of his friends did word-searches every day b/c they finished their work early. At the time it was frustrating. 4 years later he still loves word searches.

It is only week 2. Ask questions at BTSN. Talk to other parents there too, especially those who have older kids at that same school. This will help manage your expectations.

As for the lollipop, I am not a fan of teachers giving my kid candy either. But guess what, he loves it and it is not an every day thing so I just let it go.