Reply to Feedback on Bridges PCS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] I wish it were more play based, but I don't think there are any DC pre-k 3 programs that really are, or if there are, very few, in the way I mean.  Frankly, I think our old daycare skewed even more academic than Bridges by the 4 year old year.  [/quote]

OP here: Thanks for your feedback. And I couldn't agree more about your comment above, in my experience. Our current preschool goes a bit overboard also with academics--for my taste.[/quote]

I'm the first PP, and I agree that Bridges was not as play-based as we would have liked, but thankfully we had a very good teacher who worked to implement the curriculum in developmentally-appropriate ways. I think DCPS PK3 programs are overall more play-based than what Bridges offers, which is a bit more structured. Having said that, my child did fine with the curriculum. The challenges we faced were more with the administration.[/quote]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by play based and how it was at Bridges? It seems like our current DCPS either has the kids do a passive lecture/circle time, or unstructured free time with very little input from teachers. It seems kind of like the worst of both worlds for my particular kid (who is not really engaged by circle time/directed activities, but who needs more personal adult attention and guidance to do new "play based" things like play with blocks etc that he would not naturally gravitate towards. Basically my boy's preferred way of being would be to spend all his time being read to or tickled by a grown up, interspersed with going down the slide repeatedly for 20 mins.) [/quote]

I think of play-based as being an environment offering unstructured, child-directed play time. So in the ideal, lots of outdoor time, lots of centers time where kids can choose what they want to do and are encouraged to work out problems with their peers rather than with adults. Minimal adult intervention.

Bridges definitely has an hour or so a day of outdoor time, which is great, along with some centers time. But even in centers, kids are sometimes pulled out for one-on-one or small group instruction time. (This may also be true of DCPS, not sure.) Bridges also seems to have more time with group lessons/handwriting/journals.

It was a bit more teacher-directed than I would have liked--but thankfully the teacher was great and it worked out for us last year. It definitely has an early literacy component, and so relative to the DCPS-es that I'm familiar with, it seemed more focused on early reading/writing. Not as structured as Appletree, but more structured than other schools I'm familiar with. [/quote]

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