She does not believe in pushing academics onto young children in the traditional way. So, it is a perfect place for a child that has already learned how to read.
Hanni is at a preschool that is mostly structured play, which they are
awesome at. Every day there is some new clever activity or type of toy or puzzle to engage the kids. When I go pick her up, I may find her running up a gym-mat ramp and leaping onto a huge pillow, or taking turns on a rope swing that's been temporarily hung from the walnut tree, or painting her own face wild colors in front of little stand-up mirrors they've set up on the tables, or dancing to international folk songs. They also do Spanish semi-immersion.
BUT . . . they do do some "academics," with learning letters and so on. Frankly, I'm not crazy about this, but I'm okay with it so far because 1) Hanni is not a reader yet, and 2) it's a small part of the day. Hanni's small-scale spatial skills are not up to speed with the rest of her intelligence (she's hopeless with puzzles, for example), so her brain is simply not reading-ready yet. Learning to recognize the letter H is just a fun challenge for her at this point. But I do worry, what happens if she suddenly turns into a reader within the next year? Is she going to spend her pre-K year stuck practicing the letter H still?
(This is why I have a problem with academics in preschool. Some kids just aren't ready (Hanni is not going to read at this age no matter how much they teach her), and the kids with the early-reader brains have already blown past that stage. The number of kids who are on that cusp, who are really at a point to take advantage of reading instruction, is going to be really small.)
I guess we'll cross that bridge when and if we come to it. Meanwhile, we're lucky to be in a program that's a very very good fit for her needs right now.
