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Anyone have experience with this educational environment for preschoolers and k'ers?

I am interested in their apparent flexibility. Preschool class is supposed to encompass 3-5 year olds which I think would fit well for out 3yr old who acts/talks/looks like a 5 year old. I think she would seriously dominate the other kids and be unhappy in a room with only 3 year olds. They also said that they do have a few 4's in their k class, kids they've moved up based on their observations of the individual children.

My sons went to a R-E preschool when they were three. They had a wonderful experience with it, but I suspect that as with any method of teaching a lot depends on the teachers themselves.

The preschool we stumbled on was a parent-participation / cooperative program where each parent was required to spend a day in the classroom every 3 or 4 weeks, which was a great experience. The mornings were structured and predictable, but in a way that the children were able to choose their activities. The weekly themes were chosen by the teachers based on not only season, but also what the children seemed to be interested in.

Their days looked like this: After starting circle time, the centres were opened to the kids. The arts centres such as painting and drawing were always among the choices, as were the housekeeping corner and train stuff. The craft tables changed according to the theme, and while the children were encouraged to do the daily craft at some point before snack, they were not required to do it. My sons were not the only kids who loved 24-100 piece jigsaw puzzles, so big floor puzzles were often brought out for them to work on cooperatively. They would go to a brief circle time after clean up and while snack was being prepared.

Then the kids would have structured snack time where they were encouraged to find their own place mats (name recognition) and pour their own drinks and things like that.

The third part of their day was always gross-motor play.

I couldn't have hoped for a better more well-suited program. Now, part of that had to do with the teacher, who was awesome. She did things like bring a copy of Stephanie Tolan's "Is it a Cheetah" article to the first parent-teacher meeting as something she thought might be interesting for me to read.

That was our experience. I hope it helps.

Wow. Well I can only hope we run into a similar teacher, but your experience sounds really good. Thanks for sharing!

We are supposed to go visit today, but dd is trying to run a fever, and coughing a bit (up at 4:30, yay...) so she at least won't be able to visit...I am considering dropping by on my own even still to just check it out and bring her by at a later date.

Well, we have enrolled dd3 at this school after checking it out the one time, it just seemed extremely... cool, for lack of a better word.
She has been going for about a month, last week she started to flat out refuse to go into the classroom, on friday she said she was 'off duty and not going in!'. I asked the director if she could just try another room for a day. They moved her right then and she has been 'ok' for the last few days. Not sure if the novelty of that is going to wear off soon too, and whether it was a very good idea at all.... I asked dd over the weekend what if anything was the problem with the classroom and she just kept saying she was shy around the teachers; one of the teachres is a man, and I wondered if that was causing her to be 'extra' shy. Not sure. (Do 3 year olds care about stuff like that?)

Anyway, she is in the new room now, so far enjoying it, and a boy has really befriended her right away so that is a good sign, I think. Curriculum is about what you described, Min; one of the teachers in the new room seems a bit more experienced than the other room, so that might work better too. Fingers remain crossed.

You might be interested in this. I just read the abstract but it sounds interesting.

Yes, interesting! I might have to go for the full article~ thanks