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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are there “traditional” preschools?[/quote]

We could not find a traditional preschool in this area, but they do exist in other metro areas.  I think we would have preferred that.  Something which combined play with circle time with recess and also with short daily periods of 1:1 or 1:3 time with the teacher working on letters, numbers, phonics, reading, and simple addition/subtraction - which is what we had in a different metro and we were very very happy (as were DC).

Nearly all preschools here have circle time, outdoor play, and some free form play in the classroom.  Every one which we visited had kids socializing with each other all the time.

We found that in Metro DC the labels on the various preschools were not informative at all.  Each preschool was different.  So-called Montessori were all over the map - even among those with AMS/AMI certification.  Ditto with so-called play-based - we saw wild variations between preschools.

The most rigid preschool we saw called itself “play-based” (and was not using Montessori materials).  Teachers aide was going around making sure toys were being used as she thought they should be - no pretending that a toy bus was an airplane, for example.  The kids sat at tables for their equivalent of circle time.

The most flexible was actually an open classroom preschool which called itself Montessori.  They did have Montessori materials on the shelf in the mornings and called the morning “work period”, but the kids were free to do whichever item however they wanted.  The teacher would offer a “lesson” in how to use the material, but it was not required, and they tolerated students using other ways to handle the materials.   After lunch & nap, that school switched to ordinary toys, also free form, and had lots of outdoor time both morning and evening.

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