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OMG! DH has ADD and the thought of him teaching K just makes my stomach knot up. He gets overwhelmed with just our one DC!

This was EXACTLY our kindergarten and first grade experience. Kindergarten was an enjoyable environment where there was mutual respect between the teacher and the kids. I couldn't believe how well the class of 24 kindergartners acted.

First grade, every child needed to fit into the mold the teacher envisioned or it wasn't pretty. She also had some personal issues that I think made her less emotionally present in the classroom.

Ditto our experience, kimck. The smarter the kid in the 1st grade class, the more likely the child was to lose recess time and the less recess time the child was allowed when s/he actually got some. So the behavior problems were the kids' problems? Or d'ya think maybe the teacher had some issues with GT kids?

Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

K was a breeze by comparison. The K teacher differentiated the work and tried to teach every child, regardless of what they came in knowing. The 1st grade teacher bored the fool out of the bright kids and then tried to punish/bribe them to good behavior.

I think the behavioral *expectations* for K and 1st grade were similar, but I think our K teacher did a much better job of managing the classroom, so she actually got better behavior out of the younger kids.

I guess the biggest difference I saw was that our K class was only half a day, while 1st was all day. So the K kids only had to control themselves using "school behavior" for 3.5 hours instead of 7 hours or so. Otherwise, both the K and the 1st grade teachers expected kids to raise hands and be called on before speaking, sit still and listen when spoken to, stay in seats unless asked to get out, etc.

Hey, guys, let's be careful not to fall into unhelpful stereotypes of ADD. My husband has ADD, is very high functioning, takes medication and is not scattered. He is in a high management postion in corporate finance. His job depends on him being highly focused and detail oriented. He earned a master's degree while working full time and is getting ready to earn another the same way.
His inability to handle a kindergarten class has nothing to do with ADD and everything to do with the fact that he has no common sense with small children!

Sorry. Didn't mean to be unhelpful.

My point was that the teacher and the length of day seemed to me to matter more than some differing expectations. I thought the expectations between K and 1st grade were pretty much the same.

My DH has a PhD and is incredibly successful in his job too. I apologize for overgeneralizing.

I am sure there are people with ADD who could handle a K class, but the thought of my DH in a K class was very scary and it does have everything to do with his ADD! He is really great with children one-on-one, but even fully medicated, he does not do well when interrupted. Every interruption or distraction creates a startle reflex that increases each time he is interrupted. This would not be pretty in the case of 20-30 children who are learning to behave!

By the way, your comment about "highly focused and detail oriented" is true of my DH as well. It is one of the true positive aspects of ADD and a feature that is commonly overlooked. But the problem for my DH is that when he is in that highly focused state, it is almost physically painful for him to transition out of it. It is also hard for him to find the middle ground of lightly or moderately focused. It's the lightly and moderately focused state that is ideal for teaching--constantly scanning for problems and prepared to change gears at any moment. This is also very different than the chaos of unfocus in which things are changing gears without a clear reason.

Our Kindergarten was full day - exact same length of day as first grade. Almost all the kids attended full day kindergarten. And still the behavioral problems.

I do think it has nothing to do with grade level! And EVERYTHING to do with the teacher.

I volunteered every week in first grade and often pulled kids to the library. A 5th grade class was always in the library during that time slot and that particular teacher was an absolute nightmare. She was constantly screaming and it was obvious the kids had no respect towards her. Truly, it seem like she hated her job.

There is a 2nd grade teacher at our school I've heard such wonderful reviews on that I would have considered a month trial with her at the beginning of the year if we could have met with her in advance. We didn't get her (after strongly suggesting it to this years teacher who helped group the classes). I actually take that as a hint from our teacher we should bail. She knew DS was not being served in the classroom. There is another 2nd grade teacher that has kids pulled from her class every year she's so bad. It's definitely all about the teacher!

Focus people :-)

so to the question - how to "TYPICAL" kindergarterns behave... is it safe to say then (based on comments) on any given hand a child:

may not keep hands to self;
may interrupt;
may run in class;

Again, my first child was the gt with great behave who got annoyed with kids who didn't behave. My Issue NOW is I've got a HG+ 4.5 that I'm thinking of enrolling in kindergarten who IS the kid bugging your kids with bahavior).. maybe.

Here is what I think. I think ocassionally she will need redirection to stay on tast. I think we may see a melt-down every two weeks the first 2 months and then maybe once a month. she'll keep her hands to herself but if someone upsets her I can see her yelling at another child at some point - not every week but if that happened once the first month I wouldn't be like "no way".

she'll keep hands to self.
she has a very long attention span
she has 1st grade+ level skills
her friends are 6+ months older
she did not relate well to same aged friends in pre-school (her verbal ceilinged out)
she interrupts a lot (do does her mother - still - who feel 100 years older).

will she possibly fall in line with average behavior. and yes, i am thinking about will she fit the model for behavior in 1st - but at least i've been in a first grade room for her big sister.

I think she'll be fine. Many kindergarteners need to move a lot and are pretty impulsive. There were a few very quiet well-behaved children (mostly girls) in my DS's kindergarten, but they were the minority. The key was that there was a teacher who knew how to contain and even productively harness that need to move. Ideally, the classroom will be set up in such a way that your DD will fit right in. If she doesn't it is probably more because of the teacher' skills than your DD.