Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't say unstructured time, but it isn't like they are sitting there doing worksheets.

So, for instance, part of the their "reading" time might be a project to draw pictures of things that start with the letter B and, if they want to and are able to, try to write the word underneath. The kids might work on that project while the teacher works with a small group on reading.

And their math time might involve splitting up crayons evenly between their tablemates or something like that. Or building something with blocks.

My kids' teachers also had singing time, classroom dance parties, they painted murals, sat in the circle and talked aobut their weekends, etc.

I found that 1st grade was the much harder transition where there was an expectation that kids were going to be sitting and working most of the day. Kindergarten was really lovely, with a strong focus on making friends and making the kids feel comfortable in school.

In our MCPS, kindergarteners do a ton of worksheets. I just looked over everything that came home in K last year in an attempt to organize, and there were at least five worksheets per week, sometimes more. In what MCPS K did they not do worksheets?

5 worksheets per week is nothing. The nice thing about a worksheet is that you as the parent can see your child's work. I have no objection to a couple of worksheets per day.

My kid at a focus school only had one recess a day. Not sure about time in the classroom.
Having said that, we don't ride the bus. We either walk to school which takes about 25 mins or we drive and get there early enough to play for 20 mins.
The same after school. We usually play with other kids after school for at least 20 mins before leaving.
So I feel like she had had 3 times of exercise or free time in the school day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a rising senior, so maybe our experience has no bearing on today, but she came home after a couple days of kindergarten and said, "it's chair, rug, chair, rug, all day. Why are there toys in the classroom?"

Yeah, it has no bearing on today.

I would say that the routine now is rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board). Most centers do involve chairs. Like I said earlier, many of the centers are fun and contain items kids would regard as toys, at least at my son'e elementary school. It's interesting to see that this can vary by school. I'm really surprised by the poster who said that her child's kindergarten did not have centers at all.

Basically my daughter was complaining that they seldom got to go to the centers. They did look fun, kitchen, store, etc. But most the day they were either circled around the teacher or back at tables with a project. It was much more structured than pre-school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't say unstructured time, but it isn't like they are sitting there doing worksheets.

So, for instance, part of the their "reading" time might be a project to draw pictures of things that start with the letter B and, if they want to and are able to, try to write the word underneath. The kids might work on that project while the teacher works with a small group on reading.

And their math time might involve splitting up crayons evenly between their tablemates or something like that. Or building something with blocks.

My kids' teachers also had singing time, classroom dance parties, they painted murals, sat in the circle and talked aobut their weekends, etc.

I found that 1st grade was the much harder transition where there was an expectation that kids were going to be sitting and working most of the day. Kindergarten was really lovely, with a strong focus on making friends and making the kids feel comfortable in school.

In our MCPS, kindergarteners do a ton of worksheets. I just looked over everything that came home in K last year in an attempt to organize, and there were at least five worksheets per week, sometimes more. In what MCPS K did they not do worksheets?

I am a former K teacher, and I am not a fan of worksheets, but a single worksheet in K takes about 5 minutes. So if your child is doing 5 or 10 worksheets a week that is a tiny portion of their day.

In my kid’s K class, there were no centers where the kids got to choose what to do like there were in PK. So it’s not like there were blocks, dramatic play, etc and the kids were able to go in and out.

There were stations that the teacher assigned so that kids were in different groups. There was no choice in the stations (kids could not wander in and out; they were assigned). The stations were academic-oriented. So not dramatic play and blocks. Instead, the stations involved some type of worksheet or a things like making letters out of play doh (my Kindergarter’s favorite). So could be “fun,” but always structured and with an academic focus.

When others say there was centers time, so you mean the unstructured centers common in PK programs? If so I’m surprised. That does not happen at all in our school at all, and when I asked the teacher she said that was not a part of the curriculum. (We are in a non-focus, non-title 1 school.)

They did do Go Noodle a few times away during transitions. That was basically the only non-academic part of the day (outside of lunch, recess, and specials).

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't say unstructured time, but it isn't like they are sitting there doing worksheets.

So, for instance, part of the their "reading" time might be a project to draw pictures of things that start with the letter B and, if they want to and are able to, try to write the word underneath. The kids might work on that project while the teacher works with a small group on reading.

And their math time might involve splitting up crayons evenly between their tablemates or something like that. Or building something with blocks.

My kids' teachers also had singing time, classroom dance parties, they painted murals, sat in the circle and talked aobut their weekends, etc.

I found that 1st grade was the much harder transition where there was an expectation that kids were going to be sitting and working most of the day. Kindergarten was really lovely, with a strong focus on making friends and making the kids feel comfortable in school.

In our MCPS, kindergarteners do a ton of worksheets. I just looked over everything that came home in K last year in an attempt to organize, and there were at least five worksheets per week, sometimes more. In what MCPS K did they not do worksheets?

I wouldn't say unstructured time, but it isn't like they are sitting there doing worksheets.

So, for instance, part of the their "reading" time might be a project to draw pictures of things that start with the letter B and, if they want to and are able to, try to write the word underneath. The kids might work on that project while the teacher works with a small group on reading.

And their math time might involve splitting up crayons evenly between their tablemates or something like that. Or building something with blocks.

My kids' teachers also had singing time, classroom dance parties, they painted murals, sat in the circle and talked aobut their weekends, etc.

I found that 1st grade was the much harder transition where there was an expectation that kids were going to be sitting and working most of the day. Kindergarten was really lovely, with a strong focus on making friends and making the kids feel comfortable in school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a rising senior, so maybe our experience has no bearing on today, but she came home after a couple days of kindergarten and said, "it's chair, rug, chair, rug, all day. Why are there toys in the classroom?"

Yeah, it has no bearing on today.

I would say that the routine now is rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board), center, rug(Promethean Board). Most centers do involve chairs. Like I said earlier, many of the centers are fun and contain items kids would regard as toys, at least at my son'e elementary school. It's interesting to see that this can vary by school. I'm really surprised by the poster who said that her child's kindergarten did not have centers at all.

My high schooler gets an hour of unstructured playtime every school day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Our ES K (rockville cluster) did have some unstructured play time. The classroom my child was in had a small kitchen area, a rice table, and an area with magnatiles and other blocks. It was part of a rotation that included a literacy center. Not sure how long they got or if it was daily, but I loved that they had some play time besides recess.

This has been our experience too, also in the Rockville cluster. 30 minutes recess plus “play” built into rotations throughout the day. When I volunteered in the classroom, kids moved through activities like copying words, doing puzzles, cutting and pasting, house keeping corner, and teacher-led bingo (learning letter names and sounds). Most of the day was certainly focused on more academic centers, but some centers were open-ended and there was a “choice” time built into the schedule.

This year in first grade, there’s still some time for legos and Lincoln logs (and writing about the things they create).

They’ve also been moving away from homework other than encouraging nightly reading.

I’m definitely in the play-is-good camp, but both of my young-for-grade boys handled K in MCPS we’ll.

Which elem school in Rockville is this? Sounds great.

This was the experience that my son had in an MCPS Kindergarten as well. Math center could mean playing with dominoes or blocks. While this is not totally unstructured, it's just the right amount of structure in my opinion. Not everyone can play with the blocks at the same time. Centers allow all children to rotate through. Children develop a sense of waiting their turn and playing with someone who may not be their best friend already. There was a lot more play than I anticipated based upon MCPS' reputation.

Sounds a lot like our Silver Spring ES (a Focus school), although that was 5 years ago. There was lots of movement through the day, and very little sit-at-your-desk-and-work time, although there was a fair amount of time sitting on the carpet when the teacher was presenting a new concept. But even though they had free time where they could choose their centers, the teacher did a good job of linking their "play" to the other things they were learning, without them actually realizing it. One of the centers was a play store where they could practice identifying and counting coins, and another one was a kitchen with all the items labeled in simple words they could recognize. I don't think there was a ton of daily Chromebook time, but they certainly worked with them on a regular basis. I definitely remember her coming home talking about lots of other things.

This documentary from 1966 is very interesting.

https://youtu.be/_D01Z1DGa5Y

Anonymous wrote:My DC is a rising senior, so maybe our experience has no bearing on today, but she came home after a couple days of kindergarten and said, "it's chair, rug, chair, rug, all day. Why are there toys in the classroom?"

Yeah, it has no bearing on today.

My DC is a rising senior, so maybe our experience has no bearing on today, but she came home after a couple days of kindergarten and said, "it's chair, rug, chair, rug, all day. Why are there toys in the classroom?"

There was no choice in our MCPS K last year (not a title 1 or Focus school). No centers at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Our ES K (rockville cluster) did have some unstructured play time. The classroom my child was in had a small kitchen area, a rice table, and an area with magnatiles and other blocks. It was part of a rotation that included a literacy center. Not sure how long they got or if it was daily, but I loved that they had some play time besides recess.

This has been our experience too, also in the Rockville cluster. 30 minutes recess plus “play” built into rotations throughout the day. When I volunteered in the classroom, kids moved through activities like copying words, doing puzzles, cutting and pasting, house keeping corner, and teacher-led bingo (learning letter names and sounds). Most of the day was certainly focused on more academic centers, but some centers were open-ended and there was a “choice” time built into the schedule.

This year in first grade, there’s still some time for legos and Lincoln logs (and writing about the things they create).

They’ve also been moving away from homework other than encouraging nightly reading.

I’m definitely in the play-is-good camp, but both of my young-for-grade boys handled K in MCPS we’ll.

Which elem school in Rockville is this? Sounds great.

This was the experience that my son had in an MCPS Kindergarten as well. Math center could mean playing with dominoes or blocks. While this is not totally unstructured, it's just the right amount of structure in my opinion. Not everyone can play with the blocks at the same time. Centers allow all children to rotate through. Children develop a sense of waiting their turn and playing with someone who may not be their best friend already. There was a lot more play than I anticipated based upon MCPS' reputation.