Is play based always better?
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Anonymous
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Last year my son, 4.5 yo, was at a traditional preschool. It was a good mix of play and academics, with daily circle time, exposure to letters/number and name recognition etc done in a fun way. He was very engaged at this school and always volunteered a lot of information about his day there upon pickup on his own. He often played "school" in the afternoons. Unfortunately the school did not open this fall.
We now have almost finished two weeks in a very play based school that focuses on "projects" (seems close to reggio emilia but they don't describe themselves as such). There's no circle time and they write their name with glitter instead of a pen type thing. My concern is he is unable to recall absolutely anything he did there and I wondering if that's because whatever "project" they are doing is not impressionable to him and he's not engaged? Maybe not a good fit? Should I try to find somewhere else that is more "traditional", like his previous school? All I ever read is that it's not as developmentally appropriate yet he seemed to thrive better in that environment than the current play based one. |
Anonymous
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It’s only been 2 weeks. I’m guessing in your old school he brought home papers and art that happened that very day—so the papers were helping him recall what he did. If it’s Reggio based, they should be taking a lot of photos and recording his progress in notebooks that will be shared with you.
Is he having fun? Does he fee safe? I would focus on that for now. Not writing your name in a regular pen doesn’t mean he won’t be able to do that for K. |
Anonymous
| Don’t underestimate the effect lockdown/Covid has had on your child. Being in a different environment with lots of new rules can take up a lot of his mental energy. Just because he doesn’t report to you in the way he used to, does not mean that he is not thriving in his new school. Give him time. And yes, play is most developmentally appropriate at this age. |
Anonymous
+1. Our Reggio school posts photos several times a week of the kids projects, they also keep a daily journal and a portfolio of their weekly work. |
Anonymous
| It sounds a little Woo, my child goes a play-based "reggio-inspired" school that I think takes all the best parts of reggio without the "project-based learning" component. They incorporate very basic academics like letter crafts to teach the letters and sounds, teach the kids to write their names, etc. but no worksheets or anything |
Anonymous
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Op, I was reading and writing and a very young age 3/4. No one instructed me, it just happened. However being so young taught me terrible habits. My first grade teacher tried to correct my pencil grip to no avail.
Yes, everything is a keyboard now, but writing longhand was so tiring for me. Preschools shouldn’t be focusing on writing with pen or pencil. The kids are too young. |
Anonymous
This has to be the most naive and ridiculous statement that has ever been made on DCUM. |
Anonymous
No crayons for you! |
Anonymous
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Depends on the kid. For mine, no. They did best with a combination of play/academics at that age and it really prepared them well for school.
I had a curious kid who read at age 3 without formal instruction. |
Anonymous
Sure he/she did. I guess your child spoke Latin too, right? |
Anonymous
He did. And, I know others who did too. Just because yours didn't doesn't mean others don't. |
Anonymous
Whatever allows you to sleep at night. |
Anonymous
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For those at Reggio Emilia inspired preschools: give the teachers time to start communicating about investigations. After only a few weeks, our teachers are starting to see what the children are interested in that might end up sustaining enough interest to become investigations, but it's still early times yet.
Everyone is getting to know everyone, figure out the rhythm to the days, the new procedures of where lunchboxes go, cleaning/sanitizing protocols, masks, etc. While moving to a new room is always new for the children, this year the teachers are working with new protocols, etc and are figuring out their way, too. If you ask ANY child "what did you do today?" they will say 'played.' And then you ask played with what and they shrug, dunno, just played. it's hard to recall, and one thing morphs into another thing seamlessly, it's more than just playing with blocks (or legos or whatever). and they are 3 and 4 years old, so it'shard for them to recall and then synthesize and retell what they did today. |
Anonymous
| I would take whatever you can get at this point. But in general, different kids different needs. My DS thrived once I took him out of play based and into traditional. He likes check marks on his worksheets, just his nature. |
Anonymous
Meeting my child's needs does let me sleep at night. Play based is not right for all kids. And, by 4, they need more structure to prepare for K. |