Here's My Preschool Rant

[KIDZRMYBIZ]

Preschool is my least favorite part of our day. Reading, singing, play-doh and the like, FUN! Any type of worksheet or activity with instruction, BLAH! The parents expect the kids to bring home something fairly formal with an obvious agenda to it.

I have 2 (4yo) preschoolers right now. One does enjoy most of what we do and tries hard. The other is just a stinker about it. He does not follow instruction (even simple 1-part instruction) and pretty much ruins whatever it is we are doing. I will ask him afterward what the directions were and he knows. It's like he loses himself and just gets carried away. I have made him re-do a few things, providing more "help" or instruction than should really be necessary, just so it looks like he is actually being taught something here.

I'm thinking of sending his stuff home as is (today the entire page is covered in one shade Kool-Aid paint), and just tell DCM, "Sorry. DCB didn't want to follow directions today so it could look like this (the other kid's or my own example piece)."

[Shell]

I hear you, except the little stinker is my ds Something I do is to keep a folder of the children's "academic stuff" so the parent can observe the progress- they have access to the folder at pick up, and can see what we're up to. Another idea, send the activity home so they can work on it with the parents- I write up something about parent involvement. Then, they can see for themselves how he is with it.

[Baby Beluga]

I adopted the philosophy of "it's not the final product it is the process that matters" when it comes to preschool curriculum art and worksheets. And I tell parents as much.

I say send it home as is

[sugar buzz]

I don't know if this would be sufficient or work for your program, but when I taught preschool, we didn't have a lot of actual papers to send home, either. Some DCP's saw worksheets as a sort of proof of learning. (Even though they threw them away on the way out the door) I bought a dry erase board and wrote: "What did you learn, today?" Then, I would quickly list 4-5 things: We practiced fine motor skills and letter recognition, with cookie cutters in play doh, we learned social skills in our dramatic play restaurant, we sang a song about colors, etc. They really seemed to like it.

[kendallina]

I run an in-home preschool with 3-5 year olds and I don't do any worksheets. Part of my job is setting expectations with parents about what's appropriate with this age group and you can do this too. As PP mentioned, they are learning a ton with all activities. I do plan plenty of activities, though, they are all hands on. Kids leave here knowing what they need for kindergarten and neither they nor I need to trudge through worksheets or activities that makes us miserable. I also do a very small write up about the activities that we did that day, like today's said,

Shaving cream
Letter hunt
Outdoor games

That's all (it's a 3-hour program). Of course, we also sing songs and read books daily. We have tons of free play inside and outside as well. Don't feel like you have to do worksheets to please parents there are other ways to please them.

[nothingwithoutjoy]

Preschool is my least favorite part of our day. Reading, singing, play-doh and the like, FUN! Any type of worksheet or activity with instruction, BLAH! The parents expect the kids to bring home something fairly formal with an obvious agenda to it.
...
I'm thinking of sending his stuff home as is (today the entire page is covered in one shade Kool-Aid paint), and just tell DCM, "Sorry. DCB didn't want to follow directions today so it could look like this (the other kid's or my own example piece)."

In the first part of your rant quoted above, you say this is the least favorite part of your day, and it seems clear that you value the learning in play far more. But in the second part, it sounds like you value the worksheet but DCB was "bad" for not doing it as expected. I think you should focus on your gut feeling that it's not the best part of the day, and respect DCB for doing it his way (which sounds like play), and educate the parents to value that, too.

What I send home each day is a blog post that highlights one thing we did today. It might focus on one kid or a small group or all of them, and it describes/shows in detail what happened with some commentary on why I thought it was important. That way, the parents see the learning that's happening without any pressure being placed on the kids to perform.

[Blackcat31]

Maybe give this to your parents that expect something...

[KIDZRMYBIZ]

Those are all excellent points. Thank you! I really like the idea of the dry erase board and "what I learned today." That would be applicable to the whole group and not just the preschoolers. I send out a weekly e-mail with those same bullet points, but I am sure many parents just skim over it (only looking for CLOSED dates :. It would be hard to miss it by the door.

I don't do many actual worksheets. I know that material is dry, at best. This guy is blowing off our fun (to the rest of us anyway) stuff.

For example, our focus this week is the color yellow. Today, I printed off a coloring page picturing a glass of lemonade. Then they were to paint the bottom part of the glass (sectioned off by a line) with some yummy smelling Kool-Aid paint we mixed up. Lastly, they glued a bendy straw on. Simple, right? Well, DCB just plastered his entire page with the paint. I realized today I was wasting a lot of time and resources on one kid that was just being a booger, so I decided from here on out his stuff would go home as is. It was still so wet by the time he went home that we still couldn't glue the straw on!

I guess my worry is that the parents of this kind of kid will think what I'm doing is not good enough, cuz their kid's stuff really does look like garbage! I am going to start some kind of "what I learned today" right away. I love how it shows playing IS learning, too!

[Unregistered]

Please don't take offense, but as a parent, I think I'd be a little offended if you made my kid redo a worksheet because it wasn't pretty enough or good enough. I get following directions, but expecting to kids that young to color in the lines? And if the point is learning the color yellow- well, wasn't he expressing himself with that color? I don't know- I really like seeing all the differences in kids art projects- I'd be frustrated if they all looked exactly the same. What is that teaching?

[itlw8]

It is not that he is being a booger it is that those are not developmentally appropriate for him at this time. Is he learning from them ? Did he even know what lemon aid is ??

Instead print off something about how worksheets are not appropriate for preschooler. Then let the cut, paint glue and create. Want to do yellow give them yellow paint. Serve them the lemon aid to drink. count the yellow cars.

If you do not enjoy it how do you think he feels.