It takes a village to answer this question, which school is right for my child when they graduate from Creative Minds? Should they go to private, public or charter school? What is transitional kindergarten?
A few of our parents are asking the above questions, and a few of our veteran parents have tried to share their personal stories. I am a complete believer in the collective wisdom of our parents.
Here are some personal stories. Feel free to email us your story to add to the conversation:
Discovery Charter School
From Heather in Blue Room
I work in education and child development research, so I became interested in charter schools like Discovery because they align with everything we know is right for child development and learning. Discovery, in particular, is interesting because the director simply looks at what the research overwhelmingly says is best for child development and learning and adopts that approach (no homework, year-round calendar, play-based kindergarten, child-directed learning, inquiry-based learning, positive discipline, etc). Putting it into practice is, of course, rougher than that, but I think overall it's a good option for parents who prefer a school that is focused on positive development and highly motivated learning, and want to avoid the testing and high-pressure academics of some of the local public schools. I don't have the first-hand experience of having a child in Discovery yet, but I've met a lot of parents who are pretty fanatical in their devotion to the school. I've heard that Discovery 2 is having some "growing pains" but it is their first year and that's expected. I'm pretty happy that, if we get a spot, Kaia will be in kindergarten in their second year — they'll still be working out some kinks next year and for kindergarten that's fine as long as they stick to their play-based/Reggio approach.
One of the reasons I like the parent participation approach of Discovery is because, unlike some families, we don't live in a good neighborhood for having a sense of community and kids to play with. I appreciate that Discovery builds community within the school. I don't know how it looks in daily practice at Discovery, but I know that the parent meetings that I've been to as a founder have been very well attended, with hundreds of people show up. The parents are certainly involved with the school and encouraged to be involved, and I guess from there it's up to the parents to build the community that they want. Likewise with connecting with the outside community — I see those efforts happening, but I assume it depends on the parents who are there to make it happen. They do a lot of field trips, parent education, and community outreach, and a lot of that is parent-led.
I don't know much about the YMCA aftercare program at Discovery. I'm a little concerned about that, because I've heard less than glowing reviews about YMCA aftercare programs on a national level. It's hard to say how that translates to the program at a particular school. It sounds like the aftercare program is fairly small at Discovery 2, and according to the director it follows the Discovery approach. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I feel a little better knowing that the director is paying attention to the aftercare. Still, it's something on my mind. I like that they spend a lot of time outside during the day and generally get to burn energy during the day, so it's not all dependent on after school to do that.
Our plan is to go to Discovery if we get a spot and see how it goes. Our neighborhood school gets mixed reviews, but I think it's a fine alternative if Discovery doesn't work out. We're also applying for a transfer to another school in our district just because it has an IB program and is a much smaller school.
Since Kaia's not in kindergarten yet, I don't have much direct experience to share! My experience as a founding parent has been that the parents at Discovery are extremely dedicated, and the director is phenomenal. As for how to look for quality schools, it's a difficult question. I think you have to figure out what your most important criteria are. For me, the teachers and director/principal are the most important factors, along with approach to learning.
Private School
From Satarupa in Blue Room
This is our first year in K-12 school with our older son Dhruv, and also our first year of school in the US! We are very much in the learning process ourselves. I'm not married to anything yet -- public, private or charter.
Our neighborhood public school does not offer the opportunity to build a community since many of our neighbors' kids don't go there. The kids in our neighborhood play and get together anyway since we live in a townhome community and there are common areas where everyone comes out and plays. Luckily we don't miss out on that by going with private school.
The big positives for us in the private school we chose are its all-around curriculum with a strong language-arts program. The kids' music teacher is a local musician. They have music every day in kindergarten. The art teacher is phenomenal. He makes the kids who would otherwise draw a 5-year-old's line drawings produce works of art and think outside the box while they're at it. The same teachers offer after-school classes and the kids love it. There is no significant transition between school day and after school.
In general, by design, private schools end up picking students who will be suited to their particular environment (and there is a range of private school philosophies out there). As a result the teacher (who may actually be less qualified than a public school teacher) is able to focus more of her energy on teaching as opposed to maintaining class discipline, at least in the lower grades. What I'm observing is that while the method of teaching may not match what I personally could do if I home schooled for example, the class is moving at a fast pace because all the kids are able to keep up and are interested. All the kids are challenged. I don't think any kid is bored or way ahead of the class. There's no pressure from the parents. As we move to the older grades, I am going to look more closely at the quality of teaching itself, i.e teaching concepts rather than fact sheets, encouraging original work.
Public School
From Teacher Aimee
When my oldest, Fiona, was ready to transition from preschool to kindergarten, we checked out our neighborhood public school, Oak Ridge Elementary School, our school district's alternative k-8 program called The Indigo Program, and private school at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. All three were very different, but each had aspects my husband and I liked.
Our neighborhood school is within walking distance and is ranked a 7 out of 10 on greatschools.org. The Indigo Program has a similar philosophy to Creative Minds and has a lot of parent involvement. Holy Spirit had small class size and a nice campus. After going on tours at all three sites, doing some research, and much weighing of pros and cons, we went with our neighborhood school (with the thought that if we weren't happy after kindergarten, we would transfer to The Indigo Program for first grade).
Four years later we are still at Oak Ridge. Fiona is now in third grade and Katie is in kindergarten. So far so good! I think Oak Ridge works for our family because we love being part of the neighborhood community, walking to and from school and playing on the weekends with school friends. I volunteer in the girls' classes on Fridays and am active with fundraisers, field trips, and class parties. Their teachers are great! With the money we saved in tuition, both girls are able to participate in music lessons, gymnastics, swim lessons, and summer camps. We have tried to stay active with the church with Catechism and mass.
This is just a quick synopsis of my family's quest to find a school for our children that works best for all of us. Each family's quest will be different based on your priorities, resources, location, and children's personalities.
Thanks to parents for sharing their stories!
Richa
Friday, March 21, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
Letter A & Q, and K's 5th Birthday!
Hello Blue Room Family and Friends,
My apologies for posting this blog later than usual. We have been busy in the classroom with many activities and the children getting more curious about different topics.
L and N, working on letter A. We used apples for counting, sorting, art, and eating too. We sorted by color and size and also worked on addition. We counted how many apples had stems, how many were green, how many were red, etc.
R and L making apple prints. When we use paint it often turns into painting with our hands, exploring paint and mixing colors. I love when the children have those ah-ha moments when they realize that blue and yellow combined makes green.
During our circle time we talked about apples, observed them, and touched them. The children noticed many details about the apples' colors, shapes, and sizes. No two apples were the same, they were all different! This turned it to a neat conversation about how we are all children and yet we are all so unique and different in our own special way. In the picture you notice all the ripped paper. We all started with our own paper color and we practiced listening and following directions. For example, rip your paper in two. rip the bigger one again. Line up your three pieces of paper from biggest to smallest. Rip the smallest one. How many pieces do you have now. Then we started to rip the pieces as small as we could. And then we used the ripped paper to make our own apples.
With teacher Thaovy we started to make "A"ngels using markers on coffee filters and then spraying them with water. It was really neat to watch the colors blend together. We are still working on this project at school.
P putting his apples on the apple tree, practicing one to one correspondence and writing numbers. We counted how many apples there were all together, then how many red, green, and yellow ones there were.
FINALLY IT RAINED! We enjoyed Mother Nature! This was an awesome Friday. The children were so excited to use their umbrellas, rain coats, and boots. This picture doesn't do it justice, but about 5-10 minutes before we were going to go inside it started pouring. Oh what fun we had. Thank you parents for having gearing your child up for the rain. We have had a very dry winter but I smile knowing we at least had one amazing day in the rain.
As always the priceless moments of seeing creative minds at work. K and her tree branch umbrella.
A and L engaging at water play at its finest, getting to use the rain.
Taking cover!
Starting to feel a lot like spring. Teacher Richa was so kind to bring us some beautiful daffodils. We used chalk and crayons to draw and color our observations in our notebooks.
Letter Q for Quail. We talked about quails and how quails are our state bird. Teacher Thaovy brought in quail eggs for us to see. Many of the children in our class thought if we kept them that we could have pet quails in our class. We boiled the eggs and looked at them before and after. It was neat to see the transformation.
Painting with Q-tips. It is always neat to see the children's different ideas and creativity shine through the use of different tools to paint with. Painting with Q-tips helped us work on our tri-grip hold.
Sharing day...I love when I get to bring in something from my personal life to share with my/your children. For Q week I thought the children would like to see one of my quilts. This quilt my husband Ryan and I had made from all of our high school t-shirts. The children were more than excited. The joy and excitement that filled our classroom was so beautiful. They all wanted to lay on it as fast as possible. The children asked me what the different shirts were from and could read the letters SBHS. I asked them what the difference between a quilt and regular blanket was and their reply was "Quilts are HUGE!!"
Next they all tried to see if they could snuggle underneath it together.
This was another quilt that I brought from home that my aunt made for Ryan and I for our wedding. There were so many shapes that the children recognized and they even figured out that the blue squares were made out of jeans because on all four corners there are pockets. The stitching had hearts that were tough to see but the children tried to count them. I love to share my life with all of your awesome children!
Making a quilt of our own. Cutting all different types of material.
Some it the children took this very seriously and worked so hard to cut certain shapes and connect then together. One of our friends E even made a robot.
Making our patches.
Practicing staying within the lines, concentrating and taking our time. At this age we see the growth from scribbling to making pictures that depict certain characters and meanings. And we also see the children use their own creativity. Some of the children used a different color in each square, some made designs, and others made patterns.
A was very proud of her quilt
And she brought one from home to share with us.
K using a Quill to write. It definitely took much longer to write with a quill than with a marker. We tried to imagine how long writing letters would have taken before we had ink pens.
Making our Quesadillas with purple room.
We watched to see when the cheese melted and when the quesadillas were ready to flip.
D, L, and L enjoying their quesadillas.
K and J eating their quesadillas. Yummy!
Teacher Kristina Boot Camp. Just kidding! We love to be outside to exercise and stretch. We have been really looking forward to our field trip to the gym coming up march 31st.
Jumping, punching, kicking, and strengthening our bodies.
One of our class's favorite things is to do obstacle courses. K is balancing on the stones that are keeping her out of hot lava. Then a fast run over to the hula hoops.
Here you see P jumping with both feet together in each hoop.
M then crawling through the tunnel.
And lastly, G hitting the tire with a bat. All of the children cheer for their friends, and it goes kind of like this...go G go, go G go... And then when each child got to the tire they would hit the tire ten times and their friends would count for them. We always have a blast making different obstacle courses.
Happy 5th Birthday K! I feel so lucky to be in your life and be your teacher. You constantly amaze me with the things you come up with and the knowledge you share with your friends. One think I will never forget was the day you put on my sweatshirt and you pretended to be me and at pick up told a parent about their child's day like I do. So awesome! Happy birthday kiddo, I wish you the very best!
Make a wish!
It felt like a summer day in Hawaii. The beautiful yellow flowers, hot pink cups, and little paper umbrellas in our parfaits.
Our parfaits were so yummy and we ate them very quickly!
Thank you to K and her mom H for bring a fun yummy birthday snack to share. I cannot believe K is already 5. Where is the time going? Soon they will be off to kindergarten.
I hope you all are having a great week!
Hugs,
Teacher Kristina
My apologies for posting this blog later than usual. We have been busy in the classroom with many activities and the children getting more curious about different topics.
L and N, working on letter A. We used apples for counting, sorting, art, and eating too. We sorted by color and size and also worked on addition. We counted how many apples had stems, how many were green, how many were red, etc.
R and L making apple prints. When we use paint it often turns into painting with our hands, exploring paint and mixing colors. I love when the children have those ah-ha moments when they realize that blue and yellow combined makes green.
During our circle time we talked about apples, observed them, and touched them. The children noticed many details about the apples' colors, shapes, and sizes. No two apples were the same, they were all different! This turned it to a neat conversation about how we are all children and yet we are all so unique and different in our own special way. In the picture you notice all the ripped paper. We all started with our own paper color and we practiced listening and following directions. For example, rip your paper in two. rip the bigger one again. Line up your three pieces of paper from biggest to smallest. Rip the smallest one. How many pieces do you have now. Then we started to rip the pieces as small as we could. And then we used the ripped paper to make our own apples.
With teacher Thaovy we started to make "A"ngels using markers on coffee filters and then spraying them with water. It was really neat to watch the colors blend together. We are still working on this project at school.
P putting his apples on the apple tree, practicing one to one correspondence and writing numbers. We counted how many apples there were all together, then how many red, green, and yellow ones there were.
FINALLY IT RAINED! We enjoyed Mother Nature! This was an awesome Friday. The children were so excited to use their umbrellas, rain coats, and boots. This picture doesn't do it justice, but about 5-10 minutes before we were going to go inside it started pouring. Oh what fun we had. Thank you parents for having gearing your child up for the rain. We have had a very dry winter but I smile knowing we at least had one amazing day in the rain.
As always the priceless moments of seeing creative minds at work. K and her tree branch umbrella.
A and L engaging at water play at its finest, getting to use the rain.
Taking cover!
Starting to feel a lot like spring. Teacher Richa was so kind to bring us some beautiful daffodils. We used chalk and crayons to draw and color our observations in our notebooks.
Letter Q for Quail. We talked about quails and how quails are our state bird. Teacher Thaovy brought in quail eggs for us to see. Many of the children in our class thought if we kept them that we could have pet quails in our class. We boiled the eggs and looked at them before and after. It was neat to see the transformation.
Painting with Q-tips. It is always neat to see the children's different ideas and creativity shine through the use of different tools to paint with. Painting with Q-tips helped us work on our tri-grip hold.
Sharing day...I love when I get to bring in something from my personal life to share with my/your children. For Q week I thought the children would like to see one of my quilts. This quilt my husband Ryan and I had made from all of our high school t-shirts. The children were more than excited. The joy and excitement that filled our classroom was so beautiful. They all wanted to lay on it as fast as possible. The children asked me what the different shirts were from and could read the letters SBHS. I asked them what the difference between a quilt and regular blanket was and their reply was "Quilts are HUGE!!"
Next they all tried to see if they could snuggle underneath it together.
This was another quilt that I brought from home that my aunt made for Ryan and I for our wedding. There were so many shapes that the children recognized and they even figured out that the blue squares were made out of jeans because on all four corners there are pockets. The stitching had hearts that were tough to see but the children tried to count them. I love to share my life with all of your awesome children!
Making a quilt of our own. Cutting all different types of material.
Some it the children took this very seriously and worked so hard to cut certain shapes and connect then together. One of our friends E even made a robot.
Making our patches.
Practicing staying within the lines, concentrating and taking our time. At this age we see the growth from scribbling to making pictures that depict certain characters and meanings. And we also see the children use their own creativity. Some of the children used a different color in each square, some made designs, and others made patterns.
A was very proud of her quilt
And she brought one from home to share with us.
K using a Quill to write. It definitely took much longer to write with a quill than with a marker. We tried to imagine how long writing letters would have taken before we had ink pens.
Making our Quesadillas with purple room.
We watched to see when the cheese melted and when the quesadillas were ready to flip.
D, L, and L enjoying their quesadillas.
K and J eating their quesadillas. Yummy!
Teacher Kristina Boot Camp. Just kidding! We love to be outside to exercise and stretch. We have been really looking forward to our field trip to the gym coming up march 31st.
Jumping, punching, kicking, and strengthening our bodies.
One of our class's favorite things is to do obstacle courses. K is balancing on the stones that are keeping her out of hot lava. Then a fast run over to the hula hoops.
Here you see P jumping with both feet together in each hoop.
M then crawling through the tunnel.
And lastly, G hitting the tire with a bat. All of the children cheer for their friends, and it goes kind of like this...go G go, go G go... And then when each child got to the tire they would hit the tire ten times and their friends would count for them. We always have a blast making different obstacle courses.
Happy 5th Birthday K! I feel so lucky to be in your life and be your teacher. You constantly amaze me with the things you come up with and the knowledge you share with your friends. One think I will never forget was the day you put on my sweatshirt and you pretended to be me and at pick up told a parent about their child's day like I do. So awesome! Happy birthday kiddo, I wish you the very best!
Make a wish!
It felt like a summer day in Hawaii. The beautiful yellow flowers, hot pink cups, and little paper umbrellas in our parfaits.
Our parfaits were so yummy and we ate them very quickly!
Thank you to K and her mom H for bring a fun yummy birthday snack to share. I cannot believe K is already 5. Where is the time going? Soon they will be off to kindergarten.
I hope you all are having a great week!
Hugs,
Teacher Kristina
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