Hi,

Thought I would start a "How is school going for your preschooler?" thread as I haven't seen one going yet for this year.

DS4 is at a mixed age (3-5) half day structured sort of preschool. So far it's not as good as last year at a progressive sort of play based place, that one is not an option this year.

The main teacher at the new preschool is very open minded in some ways. She is actively trying to get to know him and I think he's beginning to like her. So that is good.

But it's a get ready for K sort of place. Of our choices it has one of the largest amounts of play, but sit down pay attention is still a large portion of the day. DS complains every time we go and generally when I've snuck a peek in he's not looking thrilled, when I pick him up he rushes out happy to leave (very unlike last year). Even subject matter he normally would like he doesn't there because the level is not right. For example his class is discussing how leaves fall off trees in the fall. He'd be more interested to hear that some broad leaved tree species are not deciduous in equatorial biomes.

The teacher describes him as sometimes engaged and seeming to enjoy it (I notice this is mainly days when he hasn't been in a long time) but mostly "tuned out". They have a variety of punishment systems and so far he's not been made to get to know those, except for a couple time outs for reasonable things.

The teacher openly says in a depressed voice that he's so far ahead she doesn't know what to do, and shrugs as if to say how can she be expected to know what to do. That to me seems like a good open-minded attitude in comparison with what it could be, it's probably the best I could hope for.

Because their program is so structured I'm not sure what to suggest to help -- I don't have ideas for how to differentiate for him that still include him still sitting there in the lengthy group times. I do notice they have put out some more complex books than they had out the first day although that could still use improvement.

The group of kids he'd like to play with at play time apparently tells him to go away. So that's not good. (At least there is a group he'd like to play with, there's potential in that). DS is bossy and controlling, his vocabulary is a bit different, and his enunciation is poor. Honestly if I was 4 or 5 I probably wouldn't want to play with him either. We are cracking down more at home about not playing "his way" so much, we have been way too indulgent about that -- hopefully that will help him get used to playing what other kids want to at least sometimes. Once in a while he has a great play experience at a park etc that I hope will sustain him in the meantime.

At home he's randomly gotten interested in learning Spanish, and has asked to take drawing lessons, so we'll do some things like that this fall.

We are also working on combatting his major fear these days of swinging too high and thus depriving himself of oxygen.

So how is preschool going for everyone else?

Polly