Tuesday, July 3, 2018

When Choosing a Kindergarten, What Shall I do?


My daughter will turn 5 soon and that means choosing a school for kindergarten.  So of course people had told us to make sure and choose one when she was 3 so we could get on waiting-lists, lottery systems and have a highly confusing schematic for doing interviews, open houses and applications.   Anyone who is feeling overwhelmed, intimidated and a sense of “ I will ruin my child’s life if I don’t make the right choice” ?
Well, I was. Although I was given a few facts that had been shared with me to help narrow the search and save my sanity.  Here is the helpful list that I used:

1.  Decide if you want Public, Private or Charter.
2.  Decide if you want a religious or language school.
3.  Classic education, parent participation or another educational philosophy (Waldorf, Montessori, etc)
4.  Where they will go after kindergarten…”Does your school feed into an elementary school?”
5.  Driving distance from your home and work (because family time is important).
6.  School amenities:  Field trips, music, art, language or music lesson’s.  What is important to you?

By using these guidelines, we decided on a Christian private school K-8 for our daughter which is about 15 minutes from work. It offers more music, art and language as well as actively teaching moral kindness. We are hoping that this environment will help her grow into a lovely young lady.  Here is Zara doing some art time and playing Teacher.