Afterschooling public kindergarten?

[Guest bluesyeyes]

Hello. I have been reading this board for a while, but never posted.

 

I have a DS who will be starting kinder in the fall.  I have always believed I would send my kids to public school, but now I'm beginning to have doubts.  DH and I have agreed to try it and see how it goes before exploring any other options.  The school and district are great, we just think DS might need something different.

 

He has not been tested.   He has been going to a MDO preschool two days a week for 3 years.  We have not intentionally/formally taught him at home.  Early on, I would think, "oh, I should teach him xyz"... only to find out he already knew xyz.  He has been reading since 2.5 and counting forwards, backwards, skip counting since well before then.  We have just answered his questions and occasionally given him something to think about and otherwise, just let him be a kid.  At his current level of reading and understanding math concepts he could probably handle 3rd grade easily (though obviously not socially/maturity-wise)

 

So... he will be in kindergarten and formally starting his education and I think it is a good time for him to be challenged but obviously, this will not be happening through the kinder curriculum.

 

I know a lot of you homeschool (some for this very reason), but does anyone have any experience with sending challenging material with their child to the school?  What would be the best way to go about afterschooling?  I want to keep it fun and not make it seem like a chore.  I just don't know the best way to go about this.  

 

Aside from the social aspect, P.E. and the arts, I can't help but feel like most of the year will be a waste of time for him.  Time he could be using to learn at his level and pursue topics that interest him.

 

 

[Arcadia]

Is the school play based or academic based for kindergarten? Also is the kindergarten teachers accommodating? What are the ages of your other children? I'm on my phone so I can't see signatures.

 

My oldest enjoyed public school kindergarten so it depends on the child. The social aspects made up for the boredom in math. Besides his teacher lets him doodle in his math worksheets.

 

I could send books he like reading for reading time. The school is a K-8 but he is a bookworm so even the school library doesn't contain enough books for him.

 

For afterschool we did math. Grammar, vocabulary were indirectly absorbed through reading. Took us less than 30mins per day.

 

I sent him because kindergarten at school is the big play date I could not provide at home. He was a big for size 4yr 8mth old when he started kindergarten. My youngest was also happy that he gets one on one time with me while his brother was in school.

[Guest bluesyeyes]

It is play based and very hands-on.  I do not know how accommodating the teachers are.  I know most of the teachers are well-liked, but I don't know anyone who has had a significantly advanced kindergartner for comparison.

 

He will almost be 6 when he starts.  I do think he will enjoy much of the day.  And I do have a DS who will be almost 4, so he will likely enjoy some undivided attention as well.

 

What did you use for math?  Likely, that would be the only formal instruction we would do and make the rest of it fun, hands-on science/tech stuff.

[bakpak]

Do they have a gifted program/coordinator for your county? My DD5 is in a private Montessori school for K and will be again for 1st, but I checked out a few options, including meeting with the public school's gifted coordinator for the county. I think because I met with the gifted coordinator, plus how my DD would obviously test out of things, (and me making noises), they would have worked with her at higher levels for math/reading.

[Arcadia]

I used Singapore primary math standards 2 (skip K & 1), MEP, and also stuff from links below. For hands on we did tangrams, pentominos and geoboards.

http://mathforum.org/workshops/usi/pascal/index.html

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/resources/puzzles/default.htm

 

My kid's kindergarten teacher was used to advanced kids so we were lucky there. She ran all the placement tests by him until he test out in the beginning of the school year in August. During the first parent teacher conference, she showed me the thick stack of placement tests he did :lol: He could multiply and read a few grades level above before K.

 

I used SM Standards because it correlate with California standards. So that makes it convenient for me being in California. My districts doesn't have a gifted program any more.

[SKL]

When my advanced daughter was in pre-K/K (she moved up to K in December), we used to spend roughly 40 minutes a night, 4 nights a week, reading books at her interest level.  She would read books about geography, biography, math storybooks, fairy tales, etc.  We'd find the locations on the map/gobe and talk about the information.  Then I would read aloud.  One night per week, the museums were open late, so we would go there and do some more hands-on / visual things.  During the drives, I'd ask math "word problems" and spelling words.  She also took piano and guitar lessons, and on Saturdays she had art and Spanish with a Honduran artist.  But I didn't use any formal curriculum.

 

I am not sure whether it would have been better for her to do some math curriculum at home in K.  She wasn't much of a pencil-and-paper girl, and she was young (turned 5 in January of K).  If I thought I'd be her main math teacher for years, and she were older, I might well have bought the Singapore books for afterschooling in K.  In your situation, I think I'd give them a try and see how he does with them.

[MASHomeschooler]

I think it really depends on the school/teacher (how flexible they are willing to be as far as giving him and/or letting you send him advanced work, etc.) and your son (how much he values learning versus the other aspects). Since the above posters have after-schooled and given some good advice, I thought I'd add a couple thoughts about why you might not want to:

 

1. If it's all-day, that is a long day for little guys, especially if they're not used to it. My oldest 2 both started in public school K (after part-time preschool), and while the content was easy, the day was hard. It is long, they are "on" most of the time, and there is a lot that they have to do, even though it's easy. So I'd consider at least holding off until he's adjusted to that.

 

2. Depending on what you'd like to do in the future, supplementing may mask the inability of the school to meet his needs. Before we started homeschooling, I would sometimes say something about homeschooling to my husband (something general I heard; I never wanted or expected to homeschool) and my husband would say something about not wanting our kids homeschooled. But, when one morning at the end of the first quarter of kindergarten he asked our son how school was going, and he got misty-eyed and said, "Okay, but . . . I know school is for learning, but I haven't learned anything!", my husband brought up the idea of homeschooling to me. (We then asked him, he said yes, and my daughter in 2nd grade asked if she could, too, and we've been doing it since.) Anyway, the point is if we'd been afterschooling, it might not have been as clear how little he was getting out of it.

 

(On the other hand, if you definitely want to make public school work, I do think after-schooling can help provide what he's not getting at school.) Good luck in your decision and whichever path you decide. It's tough!

[SKL]

I should have noted that my kid enjoyed full-day KG despite being way ahead.  Most of it was hands-on stuff, computer time, independent reading, writing (which she could use practice on), sharing read-aloud story books, talking.  On rare occasions she would take a book she owned to school, but generally she was satisfied with the varied books the teacher got from the library.

 

My kids somehow seem to have a lot of stamina, so doing more work after school was not a problem for them.  Some kids would have a hard time with it, though.  If that is the case, and part-time KG is not an option, then I'd just do a few minutes each day (maybe even before school) and do some more on the weekend.  Or just let it go.

[SeaConquest]

Mine is finishing up Kindy this year with a public homeschooling charter school. He went to private immersion preschools in French and Spanish, and we afterschooled him when he was 3 and 4. I had planned to send him to public Kindy (private school was out of reach for us after we had a second child), but he kept getting further and further ahead. Gifted classes don't begin in our district until 3rd grade, and I just couldn't see him being content in a regular classroom for 3 years. He's extremely extroverted and active, so we compromised by enrolling him in the homeschool charter. He does his core classes with me and goes 3 days per week for fun, enrichment classes at the charter. It's been a great solution for us, especially as he has continued to accelerate further ahead. I don't know if you have anything like that in your state, but I thought that I would share our experience.

[bakpak]

You'll see in my siggy that we afterschool math (Singapore), languages, & music, plus she is very active in ballet. Find what subjects YOU and your child are interested in together and have fun with those. My DD does math all day at Montessori school, enjoys it with breakfast most days, and even tried turning her violin lesson into a math session this morning. Unless you're working on bringing up a skill that's behind, I'd mostly focus on keeping the subject fun and exciting at this stage. There is always more to learn, and interests wax and wane.

[bakpak]

I would not go in with the expectation that you will need to provide material for your child at school. It is the school's responsibility to provide that, and you can have a discussion with his teacher ahead of time to discuss options (maybe he/she would appreciate the help) and/or you can provide guidance and/or examples of his level and interests. ETA: When I spoke with the PS gifted coordinator, she said it is good to know ahead of time if a child is working well ahead, as it can influence which teacher they put the child with. Some teachers are better at accommodating outside-the-box kids than others. So have the discussions now with the school before things are 'set in stone'.

 

For afterschooling, I find that working on material at breakfast/dinner works well for us to sneak in a bit of fun school work to appease me and keep my DD5 happy with learning new things. Just before bedtime might work better for your family or during snack right after school. After spending all day around other children, I have found my DD tends to be by herself more at home (reading, dancing, playing with critters & other quiet creative activities). I'm guessing this is part developmental and part balancing her need for personal space and feeling in control of how she spends her time. I wouldn't necessarily have anticipated this given her constant demanding for MORE, MORE MORE when she was a preschooler, but it rings with what others have said of their children.

 

 

[Guest bluesyeyes]

Thank you all for the thoughts and perspectives!  

[ThoughtfulMama]

My guy is just finishing up an awesome year of private school kindergarten. Yes, he had a wonderfully responsive teacher who "gets" him. But he was fully engaged in all of the classroom fun. He got individual reading assignments and some supplemental math, but the days were also packed full of fun activities, art, music, Spanish, Chinese, and lots and lots of playtime.

At home we didn't specifically after school anything, but it's a big job supplementing his lightning brain. I've created a reading list that helps me remember what books he likes and what to check out at the library. We do Bedtime Math (mental math) for fun at dinner. We do science experiments on the weekends and in the summer. We visit museums, telescope star parties, and go fossil hunting. We do lots of Legos and Snap Circuits. And for screen time he builds amazing things in Minecraft and does computer coding with Scratch. And he plays 3 sports (one at a time), so body and mind are both busy.