mathnerd Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 My DS goes to half day K in PS (5 yrs old). He is accelerated in quite a few subjects because of afterschooling, mostly math and reading. But we also do other subjects like geography, science, second language etc during our afterschooling (depending on what we feel like) in addition to sports (he attends classes run by coaches as I am a non-sporty mom). He is a super social guy and he now wants me to stop afterschooling as well as cancel all his sport activities and send him to afterschool care that is located onsite in his school because his friends from K go there in the afternoon and he is feeling left out. We mainly afterschool in the afternoon and he is pestering me to send him to afterschool care. He says he wants to hang out with his friends after school rather than work with mom on learning. In an area with 2 working parents, most kids go to afterschool care in his ps. But, the onsite afterschool place in his school is really bad - they do some arts and crafts and have supervised playtime and I don't see any special value in it. I am not a pushy parent and let my child dictate the pace as well as schedule enough playdates, shopping trips, field trips etc during afterschool hours so that there is fun as well as learning. Do I keep on afterschooling or just give in and send him to the afterschool care place and see how it goes? I am working part time by choice and it would definitely help me to send him to afterschool as he requests and switch to working fulltime, though the pace of learning would drastically drop. It is just that I take so much effort and time to afterschool and it seems that my DS does not want it anymore and I am frustrated by it. Anybody in this situation? Any encouragement or thoughts to share? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nart Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 What time is he out of kinder? Can he go to the center until the students in the other grades get out of school a couple of times a week? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 But, the onsite afterschool place in his school is really bad - they do some arts and crafts and have supervised playtime and I don't see any special value in it. For a five year old, bonding with buddies and play time are important. I believe they are more important than academics. Is there any way your son could go to afterschool and still keep one of the sport activities as well as a few of the academics? ETA: Another idea is to offer to provide fun projects and material for the afterschooling -- things like toothpicks and glue for toothpick buildings, paper and cheap how-to books for paper plane making, blocks and legos if they don't have them, puppets, etc. Projects and play time are great ways for kids to discover new interests that might lead to their careers later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 Thanks. Sending him to the afterschool care program for a couple of days in a week is an option that is doable. On further discussion with my DS, it seems that the afterschool place has field trips to movie theaters, christmas tree fields/pumpkin patches and chuck-e-cheese's once every 2 weeks! And he feels very left out when the other kids talk about such things during school time. I definitely do not do as many crafts with him during afterschool time because his PS K curriculum is almost 80% crafts and art oriented. I could change out my afterschooling style as well as send him to the afterschool care program for a few hours a week and put his sports on hold for a few months. Thanks for the thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itsmylife Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Seems like his time after school is very structured. I would send him to afterschool or let him play outside. He is 5 - needs the playtime more than academics. I would sneak in afterschooling on weekend mornings and holidays. Do you read to him?? If so, switch to reading more non-fiction type books that will also double up as learning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uff Da! Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 nm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoppeltGemoppelt Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 My youngest kids are in full day Kindergarten. We all get home at the same time. They know that they are expected to do "homework" (afterschooling reading, math and German) every day! We only do one subject per day on a school day, but it does get done! What I'm trying to say is, you could send him to the afterschool program and still do extra work with him at home! The social aspect is VERY important, but depending on your work schedule, you can do both! For a sport: Find one that is only once a week or on the weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 It really depends on how much your child can tolerate, but I agree that you can probably do both. I assume that the school's after-school program is flexible as far as how late you pick him up and how many days he goes there. You could find out which days they do the things you see value in, and let him go those days, and/or pick him up early on some days. My girls are KG age (5 and 6) and they go to the "late room" every day. From what I can tell, it is not structured at all as far as who does what when, except that they do take the kids outside to play at some point (hooray!). Initially I thought this would be wasted time, but it really isn't. They benefit a lot from being around older kids (they don't have older siblings). They learn all kinds of games and "kid culture" as well as having time to read, draw, etc. This is also the only time they see TV, which isn't all good but it isn't all bad either. I also arranged for their piano teacher to go to the school on Thursday afternoons to give them their lessons, and they have school "bell choir" practice on Monday afternoons. I pick my kids up whenever I need to collect them for their next activity, whether it's 4pm or 6pm. We manage to do a lot in the evenings, partly because they get their "chill time" out of the way in "late room." Most weeks they have Little Gym activities 2 days, swimming 1 day, and often doctor visits, museum trips, cultural activities, and much more. We drill academics in the car and do reading, math, and piano practice as well as at-home therapies almost every day. We incorporate social studies and science into our reading and day-to-day activities. We play with foreign languages "on the fly" and they also spend Saturday mornings with a nanny whose native language is Spanish. Seems like enough to me. The fact that we don't watch TV at home helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoppeltGemoppelt Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 It really depends on how much your child can tolerate, but I agree that you can probably do both. The fact that we don't watch TV at home helps. Yes, I agree with SKL on this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Just curious I have heard the term "late room" quite a few times. Is this a free/cheap service. Here afterschool care is privately run and quite expensive so only used when parents are actually working. Eta. Expensive is a relative term of course for many people it would not be a big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Just curious I have heard the term "late room" quite a few times. Is this a free/cheap service. Here afterschool care is privately run and quite expensive so only used when parents are actually working. Eta. Expensive is a relative term of course for many people it would not be a big deal. Good question! I was pleasantly surprised that my school offers this service (also "early room") for $1.50/hour per kid. This is way cheaper than daycare rates. It's also cheaper than the hourly cost of many extracurriculars. And while it isn't really a structured activity, it's more age-appropriate than what they'd be doing if they went to a daycare after hours. I'm sure it varies school-by-school, and probably not all schools have this service, but it's worth checking it out. I don't know of too many after-school programs that my kids would qualify for that are really "enriching." There is one, for example, that teaches Asian-oriented stuff such as Chinese language and martial arts. But I'd have to transport them there, so that would kind of defeat the purpose of afterschool care (for a working mom). I guess I could look into what they might have at the nearby YMCA. Our town rec center has an afterschool program that buses the kids in, but only if they attend the nearest schools, which my kids don't. I did a fair amount of research last year and was really disappointed at the lack of afterschool alternatives. This may be why I'm pretty satisfied with what the school offers. It's about as good as any of the alternatives. I had been hoping for a program that would offer coached physical activities, so I wouldn't have to cover these in the evenings. No luck with that so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 Thanks for all the replies. I am considering sending my DS to the onsite after school program for 2 days a week and see how I like it! It will also give me an opportunity to increase my work hours and still afterschool on the other days. In my area, afterschool care is provided on site for all the local public schools in special rooms and they are outsourced to an external provider - CDC or YMCA. They cost around $ 600 - $700/month for half day care for kindergarteners (also includes "before school" care if dropped off before 8:00AM, snacks, supplies etc). But, for really picky people, there are tons of afterschool care places that are not onsite and they are academically very good (have singapore math, kumon math tutors) and also incorporate art, martial arts, music, dance, languages, home work help etc. They tie up with shuttle services which pick up kids from public school and drop them off at the afterschool care center. the shuttle costs $8 / day. Parents can pick up kids any time before 6:00 pm. The area where I live has mostly families with both working parents and it is very common for their kids to go to afterschool care. The reason I did not choose the offsite afterschool care which is more to my liking is because I am not comfortable with my 5 year old being picked up in a shuttle by a driver and taken to the afterschool center. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 But, for really picky people, there are tons of afterschool care places that are not onsite and they are academically very good (have singapore math, kumon math tutors) and also incorporate art, martial arts, music, dance, languages, home work help etc. They tie up with shuttle services which pick up kids from public school and drop them off at the afterschool care center. the shuttle costs $8 / day. Parents can pick up kids any time before 6:00 pm. The area where I live has mostly families with both working parents and it is very common for their kids to go to afterschool care. The reason I did not choose the offsite afterschool care which is more to my liking is because I am not comfortable with my 5 year old being picked up in a shuttle by a driver and taken to the afterschool center. I wish we had something like this near my kids' school. I guess I should keep looking. They were very young when they started 1st grade so I might have passed over some of the options targeted toward older kids. Or maybe the community their school is in doesn't have enough demand for that type of afterschool program. I checked the nearby YMCA and they don't have an afterschool program. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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