Since Tyler misses the cutoff for Kindergarten, he will not start until he’s almost 6. Which means, he has 3 years of preschool since we enrolled him this Fall. He has to repeat either 3 year old or 4 year old preschool somewhere along the line. We met with his teachers last week and overall, he is intellectually ready for the 4 year old class, but right now, he is not socially ready. Our original plan was to have him repeat the 4 year old class because it’s a little more focused in terms of activities and crafts. The teacher was leaning toward having him repeat the 3 year old class because he isn’t fully into group play yet compared with some of the older kids in class. Some of which started a year later and are more than a year old than him since he’s a very young 3. Right now, he does a lot of parallel and one on one play.
I’ve had a few opportunities to observe him in a group settings with his classmates. I taught 1 class and I’ve been to a few birthday parties. From what I see, it seems like he’ll join in group play IF he’s interested in what they’re playing with. One birthday party had a huge train system set up and he jumped right in helping to build it and play with it. At school, they usually use blocks for group play , but he has never been interested in building blocks. We have a big bucket of blocks and I think he’s touched it at most 20 times over the last 3 years! It was hard for me to tell if he just didn’t like the activity or if he really just isn’t into group play yet.
He doesn’t have any problems with group activities in terms of snack time, craft time, story time, etc. The teacher says he’s one of the most independent kids in class and he requires very little teacher attention. He regularly helps himself to whatever he wants during playtime (even if he’s not always supposed to be getting certain items….like glue and glitter). He can put on his own jacket and he’s one of the few kids who will get his bike helmet out of his bookbag by himself when it’s time to go out…and he’ll put it back in and zip up his bag when they come back in.
So I’m torn because it’s a long time between now and September, but we have to register him now for next Fall. I could register him for the 3 year old class again, but what if over the next few months, he becomes more interested in group play. I think activity wise, he would be more interested in the 4 yo class material. He learned out to write his name by himself and is very interested in reading and writing (which they do in the 4′s, but not the 3′s). But I don’t want to register him for 4′s if there is a certain social expectation that he won’t be able to meet.
I hosted playgroup for some of the local moms this morning. Prior to school starting, he would just sit in my lap the entire playgroup. Today, he went off in the other room with the 1 other girl around his age and played trains with her the entire time. (The other kids are around keira’s age and younger, so not much fun to him). I could hear him talking to her and singing at times. So he has definitely made a lot of progress over the past few months, which makes me think that he might be ready next Fall.
Why is preschool so stressful?!!!!
