Reply to What does PreK Look Like in DCPS?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "What does PreK Look Like in DCPS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Just echoing others -- our PK experience in DCPS was amazing. Very play based, child directed. A typical day was:

-- Free play on playground until around 9:30
-- Morning circle time with songs and talking about stuff like nature, the weather, families, etc.
-- "Choice time" They had stations around the classroom (water play, blocks and building, arts and crafts, etc.) and kids chose an activity and did for around an hour
-- Snack time
-- Specials, where music or Spanish teachers would push into the classroom for age appropriate lessons in these areas
-- lunch (in the classroom)
-- recess
-- nap
-- small group instruction (this was the "academics" and was only about 15-20 minutes and I actually don't think started until PK4)

They also took walks in the neighborhood to look at trees throughout the year, visited the local fire station and the grocery store, spent time in the school garden learning about plants and bugs, and did a lot of art projects.

Couldn't have asked for a better PK experience, I can't believe we received this for free through DCPS. Amazing.

K was more academic than I would have liked and was too much sitting down and listening and not enough free play or time outdoors. DCPS should overhaul its kindergarten curriculum. The problem is that while all PK teachers in DCPS have degrees in early childhood education (a requirement, it's great) the K teachers don't need to meet this requirement and many of them don't support or care about a model for ECE that is focused on play and experiential learning. DC did fine in K, I just would have preferred a less academic environment.

We couldn't afford private though, so we were stuck with it. My understanding is that charters are uneven on this point -- some are great, others are not. We didn't get into our preferred charters so we stuck it out with DCPS and on balance it's been okay. But the PK program is phenomenal -- I would do that again in a heartbeat, but I might try harder to get into a charter for K if I had it to do again.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics