My daughter does not have special needs but is extremely introverted and reserved and she absolutely loves extended day. She was so happy to hear it was coming back this year. She likes playing with her extended day friends, and really likes the early release days and the special things they plan for those days.

At our school K was separate and grades 1-5 were mostly together. The K group was in a large classroom and played outside, same snack and everything, but also seemed to do more structured art project type things.

My older kid just ran around the playground or school gym the whole time. Or a lot of time the kids brought games/trading cards and played that.

They both really loved extended day and my older child in particular made a lot of friends that way. In K, the younger one would get a bit tired and so I let him take the bus home on days I was working from home.

They would usually plan special theme days on early release days.

Anonymous wrote:The school day was already long for my young 5 yo, making extended day just too much. We switched to a sitter at home and had a happier kid.

It is a long day for the young 5 year olds. I had one too. She did extended day and was fine, but for the first few months of school a sitter would have been better. The trick is that in elementary there are monthly "early release" days, where extended day is a lifesaver. Our school was done at noon those days! But it barely made a blip on my radar because she just went to extended day. It also helped her solidify some friendships, because those kids stayed in ED too.

The morning extended day is also great for the 2 hour delays in the winter, when there isn't much on the ground. School would open at 9, but we could still drop her at 8am.

Anonymous wrote:There are big differences across schools too. If you end up at one of the larger ES, Extended Day can be loud and crazy. But they do try to keep the little kids (K-2) in separate spaces from the bigger kids.

+1 it was loud and chaotic at our school. They did about an hour outside though. K was generally separate

My kids loved extended day from k-3rd grade. After that they wanted to be home.

The school day was already long for my young 5 yo, making extended day just too much. We switched to a sitter at home and had a happier kid.

There are big differences across schools too. If you end up at one of the larger ES, Extended Day can be loud and crazy. But they do try to keep the little kids (K-2) in separate spaces from the bigger kids.

Anonymous wrote:Snack then go oit to the playground the whole time.

That was my kids experience too and they also had a separate room for Kindergarteners to play if the big crowd was too much. The staff had organized activities everyday but only had to do those if you wanted to. We also signed the kids up for one enrichment activity each semester (things like an art class, kid fitness, Reptiles Alive, etc.). In K DD also had her Daisy troop meeting during Extended Day.

Anonymous wrote:Snack then go oit to the playground the whole time.

This is OP. She can do snack and playground! Thank you.

Snack then go oit to the playground the whole time.

My 4 year old has one more year of preschool and then will enter APS. She has some special needs so I’m already starting to think about whether she can handle extended day or whether I will need to do something else for after school care. Can someone please describe what extended day is like? Is it big groups of kids? Loud? Unstructured? Those things would be hard for her.