Welcome!
I can echo some of the same statements as everyone else. My son (who just turned 5) has been attending a Montessori program since October. After having him tested last fall we moved him from a play based preschool to this program hoping for the best. I think that it has helped on his emotional outbursts and silly timeouts that he was having at the preschool for talking too much. I also think it that the program has presented my son with many challenges. Mostly in the LA since my son has only began reading in the past year. In math, my son is very bored with the manipulatives and whenever they try to do an activity such as large number multiplication with the bank manipulatives my son gets frustrated because "The teacher make it so confusing by making me use the bank". He is much better at mental math and abstract math--the teachers insist that he must use the manipulatives to "fill in the gaps".
We found that our school is not very flexible with the K (extended day program). They must be 5 by September 30th to be included. My son is in the in the Pre-K 4's group but doing work above the K group. The school wants him to attend K there next year but I am currently working with our public school on a skip to 1st which his current teachers do not support. The reasoning---"He will be bored no matter what year he starts 1st, he'd even be bored in math if he started in 3rd grade, why rush him?" I think the $10,000+ could be better spent on enrichment if he were to enter 1st in September.
As far as challenging work--my son has had to beg the teachers to do various work that is not available to the Pre-K kids. He is now doing the leveled readers. They also try and have his research a little deeper into the themes. For example this month is reptiles and amphibians--my son has access to animal cards with facts on them and he has a research project to identify various plastic reptiles using the cards. I like that they are trying but I am not sure I can expect this kind of work for the next 1.5 years.
Sorry that got so long--hopefully some of my experience will help you.
Last edited by crisc; 02/18/08 10:30 AM. Reason: grammer
