After all of the effort looking into kindergarten for our daughter next year, it looks as though we have come full circle back to her current school.
The international schools are good but I think that we may have confused cost with quality. In the end we really want a school that will continue to help her learn Mandarin and we also want a half-day program. Only her Singaporean school provides both.
There is a lot of talk out there about how kindergarten is now very focused on academics, supposedly a major change from when we went to school but I have not seen a dramatic difference. Sure, we had story time, nap time and play time and now there is more of an effort on preparing children for first grade. Which mainly means they start learning to read and can count to 100 by 2, 5, or 10. There is also a limited amount of homework which encourages parents to be involved but it is hardly a grueling regimen.
The curriculum for next year includes a class activity to make apple sauce in order to learn how to measure and count. I cannot foresee the day that we will have to tell other people that our daughter was held back because she failed apple sauce.
I remain very convinced that the move to all-day classes has much little to do with helping children grow and much more to do with the fact that few families have a stay-at-home parent who can pick up a child at 1 p.m. My first preference would be to home-school Citrus for kindergarten but it appears that we have reached a compromise with the half-day class. I will have time alone with the baby in the morning and then can do fun activities with my kids in the afternoon, instead of a teacher doing similar activities a half-hour drive away. Plus, Citrus will continue to learn Mandarin through school and a weekend class, something that I cannot teach. Fortunately Elysia can help her with the workbook.
Our daughter may not have access to a synthetic ice skating rink at the Stamford American International School or Indonesian gamelans for music class at the Singapore American School. Instead she will continue to have Singaporean classmates and the daily lunch of porridge with fish, tofu and vegetables. She also will not spend 1-2 hours per day in transit on a school bus. Sounds good to me!
School friends 2009, Level K1
