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I use my flash cards once a day as a gauge of what they have learned. My boy, we have been doing art for all his letters, and now some numbers. He seems to learn better when he gets his hands involved. So things like sticking tissue paper to a letter cut of contact paper, or gluing colored sand to a letter. Today we glued colored salt. He is learning them. We also have words on the wall with pictures and talk about them. We have been practicing listening to the letter sounds in the words, not sure if that is doing any good or not, but is the only way I have thought of to teach sounds. He as no clue what begins with any letter, except what I tell him at this point. He can read the word cat and dog. But I am not sure if it is because he memorized them or is reading them. They are on the wall.
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If you want to do it then if it's low pressure then it's fine. But remember that COGNITIVE development is different than ACADEMICS. Academics is NOT development. Providing a rich environment with blocks, dramatic play, stories, songs, art etc is way, way, way more beneficial for young children than academics. Academics is barely useful at all to young children.
Ideally, just make it song based or something. Phonological is helpful (hearing the sounds/final/onset/rimes etc), but it can be done with games. I also think that learning to write the name is a good thing (self-concept).Comment
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Manipulatives really give great real-life understanding for math concepts.Comment
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All of my kids LOVE manipulatives, and I so do I. But even though I don't have the kindy packet yet, they gave me a short list of what he needs to know for Kindy. I will get a longer list later. But here is what I have now.
Recognize letters, upper and lower case
Recognize numbers to 20
Count to 20
Write at least first name, but they prefer first and last
Tie shoes
So we are working on all that, and I am waiting for the full list.Comment
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Omg haha my 8 year old doesn't even know how to tie shoes! He's always wore crocs and velcro tennies. Never stopped him from being amazing in school. He's a very creative artist and writer and actually cooks- makes scrambled eggs, french toast and baked me cupcakes for valentines day all on his own. He didnt do homework until this year (2nd grade). I don't believe in it for young kids. He is pretty advanced in reading but never was taught a letter before kindergarten. He learned some through his own interests and he learned to write his name. So ridiculous to me that the public school system expects kids to be taught these kindergarten concepts before kindergarten. I will never teach these and I will continue to advocate for play only for ece kids for the rest of my life! It gets me so riled up.I'm so glad I am lucky enough to have the progressive charter school my son is in, but I will honestly do my best to make this academic push down stop for other kids and other schools too.Comment
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I don't agree with it all either. But I guess I feel powerless over it. I mean if they start and don't know it, they make a huge deal of it. They do assessments during the first three days of Kindy, but I don't know what they do with the info from them. The odd thing is I have a DCG who is in Kindy and she tells me everyday that she plays at school. Which I think is a good thing in Kindy, but why do they need to come in knowing so much if play is so important?Comment
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I checked our state's common core book and they say "begin to count to 20 by ones" for K readiness as well. I think they mean "rote count" to 20. Like where they just memorize it, not really understand the quantities.
It seems like they want more understanding of 1-10. The book says "Count a number of objects 0-10 and associate with a written numeral."
And tying shoes...wow that's steep for pre-k. Ours has "screw lids; does up buttons and zips; control scissors; and mature pincer grasp of pencil" for fine motor k readiness.Comment
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I do lots of hands-on learning with my daycare kids, have the kindy check list and do my best to have children ready for kindy BUT I used to beat myself up if they didn't know all they needed to know before kindy. I always worried about the teachers saying "why didn't ms.xxxx teach this child".
But I had a kindy teacher tell me once that every child don't necessarily learn letters/numbers quickly....that if I made the child feel accepted/loved and taught the children to know when to listen and sit still, follow directions, respect others, etc., the teacher could teach them academics or find out why they weren't learning. She said all children are not ready at preschool age to learn their ABC's, etc....
She further told me they knew the kids from my daycare by how well behaved they were, not always by what they knew...so I think a provider simply needs to do what works for the children in their care because if these children are nurtured and loved, they have the groundwork for success despite how many ABC's they know!
I think the old saying is "children may forget what you taught them, but will always remember how you made them feel".....feeling loved goes a long way!
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For me i would feel it's my job. If a child is 4k and not in a 4k program I'd feel it was my job for sure! I've taught preschool & kindergarten but even if I wasn't a licensed teacher I'd feel it was my job.
All of us that work with children are teachers! I don't think he has to know every upper case and lower case letter but a well rounded exposure to literacy and reading readiness is important.
I'm not a big proponent of preschool programs that focus heavily on letters and numbers, but do believe in "exposure". I believe it's better if they have a good grasp on letters upon entering K.
I have magnetic stories kids can re-tell, I have small plastic letters in the rice table, alphabet stampers for playdoh, I have poems on large chart paper that we "read"-a new one every few weeks, I do name games and name recognition, I offer environmental print activities and games, ( look up mother Hubbard's cupboard website).
Rhyming ability is real biggie! You know .....rhymes are word families! Hat, cat, mat..the at family. Children learn through music too. Think Jolly Phonics.
I do activities with predictable sentences. I use sentence strips from the dollar tree. I see a cat, I see a dog, I see a car, etc.
It is endless the fun, active, interesting ways we can play with letters and words and stories.
Be on the look out for alphabet games at rummage sales. I got those cute magnetic food items that were for each letter that came with a tiny fridge. I put all the food in order on a cookie sheet. I hand out the first five/six and say who has aaa for Apple etc.Comment
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I have been thinking this for the last year or so.
The reality is that we can rail all we want about pre-K and K being developmentally inappropriate for kids, but it's not changing anything. We can make cutting remarks about a provider who is attempting to get kids up to speed - questioning their education or knowledge of age appropriate "best practice" but again, the reality is that if kids go off to K and struggle because they don't know what's now expected, parents will be convinced that all day pre-K is better than day care. In some areas providers are already losing kids as soon as they turn 4. And now there's talk of doing a 3's class
Many of you know that I offer transportation to a "real" preschool (
) because parents want that service. And I've always been pleased with the school but have acknowledged its an old fashioned traditional pre-school (not connected to child care center at all, 4 yo's attend three days a week for 2.5 hours) Lately parents are starting to complain because, the preschool will say the child is ready for school, but when the kids head off to our all day K, a lot of them have a rough time (especially the boys) but K here is more like the old first grade.
The one boy I had last year (who attended the 3 yo class at the preschool) but didn't have space for this year is now at an all day pre-k program and it sounds a lot more "big school" than our little preschool. Mom told me she likes it much better than his experience last year. I mean, some of that has to do with the fact she's not scrambling to get him picked up 2.5 hours after he's dropped off. But it's also the fact he's getting used to be in school all day long.
Developmentally, the little preschool in our neighborhood is probably more appropriate. But I see more and more parents choosing the all day pre-k option or wishing they had after the fact.
It's disheartening, but I don't know what we can do.Comment
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That one thing I do love about my area. I think a lot of people are still into old-fashion childhoods a bit more. People definitely send their kids to preschool, but I very much approve of our local preschool. (Before I started my daycare, I sent my son there.) The morning is their "preschool" time. The afternoon is just childcare. I'd pick my son up and the teacher would be showing him how to climb on the monkey bars or they'd be be throwing apples over the fence for fun. He'd come home messy, and with ripped jeans. I always felt like he was still have lots of time to just be a kid. But you know what, now that he's in kindergarten, he's right on par, and most of the time, he didn't even know he was learning.Comment
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