If you deferred K for a year due to delays....
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Anonymous
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...and you are in MoCo, where did you decide to send your child for the extra year?
Don't want to start a "redshirting" debate as our kid has a significant speech delay/ADHD/anxiety. She is improving in part-time play-based preschool. We want another year of play and social/emotional development before K, which is now more academic than ever before, at least where we live. Also a preschool that understands special needs. Her current preschool is not an option as it is close to where I used to work, I have changed jobs recently, and the commute will not work for another year. |
Anonymous
| Which towns would work? |
Anonymous
| Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery school. Psrt time, very play based, lots off outside time... |
Anonymous
| We sent DS to Maddux for pre-K year. It was his second year of pre-K as he also has ADHD, significant language based LD's and anxiety. |
Anonymous
| Karasik |
Anonymous
| We also did Maddux for a year but had a nursery school with an excellent reputation and small class size as a back up option if we didn't get in. We also continued to do private therapies and speech through the county. |
Anonymous
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OP. We are in Silver Spring, obviously would like to stay as close to that as possible, but have traveled as far as Bethesda for regular therapies.
We are currently playing phone tag with Karasik, would love to hear a little more how that experience was for PP. |
Anonymous
OP – forgot to mention, we would love to try Maddux, but don't think we could manage the tuition unfortunately. 
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Anonymous
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I have a friend who's son went to Acorn Hill in SS: http://acornhill.org He sounds similar to your DD.
Another friend's kids went to 4 Corners: http://www.4ccn.org However, I don't know how strict they are at the age 4 cut off for their programs. It might be a trek, but I would strongly recommend Geneva Day School in Potomac. |
Anonymous
| I don't have any specific suggestions, except for to keep an open mind about what a good preschool/jr K would look like. you don't actually want totally play based or loosey goosey - you want some structure with teachers who view working with kids on social skills and attention as part of their job. And some academics are going to be appropriate too at this age to start practicing to improve focus and persistence. |
Anonymous
those two programs seem the opposite of what my ADHD/delayed kid would need! He does not need to be left to his own devices. That would mean behavioral issues and avoidance of learning skills he finds challenging. |
Anonymous
We went to Winchester in Aspen Hill. They were very very supportive to my language delayed child and he thrived there. They are very structured and the academics helped a lot with the language. The negative is they got a new "director" and have changed things and we were not fans of some of the changes the second year we were there. They are very structured and don't tolerate any behavioral issues so I'm not sure how the ADHD would fit in. They have small classes and its nice as the kids rotate between the teachers who really enjoy their subjects and kids (at least when we were there) had a daily art/music class (the teacher would take the kids out extra time when the weather was nice out). I would consider putting him in K. Our child's speech greatly improved while he was there as it is very language based and he transitioned really well to public without any issues. We did all services privately. Winchester offered my child to do a 1/2 day visit to see if it was a good fit. We considered Maddox but ended up ruling it out it didn't seem like a good fit and the cost. Also look at Redwood Montessori. It was our second choice. We didn't find a lot of regular schools language delayed friendly at age 5. The director was very welcoming and seemed supportive but at 5, I wanted a structured program with strong academics so we choose Winchester over Redwood. We called Geneva Day but they were full when I called. They seemed language delayed friendly but my concern was they only had K. and I wanted to keep my child somewhere two years and go through 1st/wait till the language resolved more before public/large classroom. Someone also recommended Epworth in Gaithersburg but at the time they only had K. and not 1st grade. It was also very far for us. Now it looks like they only have a transitional K. which might be good for you. Paying for private for the small classes and individual attention for a few years was one of the best choices we made for our child. We had to hold our child back due to age/miss cut off but ended up pushing him ahead/skipping a year as he really thrived that first year. Its a hard choice but for the language, moving ahead seemed to be a better choice for our child academically and socially. I'd really consider a private K. and if you want to hold back, switch to public and repeat K. |
Anonymous
| Wow. Does anyone have any recs like this in nova? |
Anonymous
Check old threads. It's a tuff year as we found lots of schools were not ok with delays even with no behavioral issues. |
Anonymous
| College Park Nursery School has a half day kindergarten that we did with my similar child and then regular full-day kindergarten the next year. There were a few Silver Spring families in our class. |