Saturday, October 10, 2009

Lunch, Potty, Naps and Aftercare

Potty Training
My wife and I made sure that our son was potty trained before the school year began per the DCPS regulations. Believe me, by the time your child is three, it's a good idea to not be using diapers.
That is not to say that there aren't accidents. There are. Both of the 3-year-old classrooms have a bathroom IN the classroom. My 3-year-old does not have to use the bathrooms that the older children use. If my kid has an accident the teacher's aid helps change him into his spare clothes and hopefully it doesn't distract the class's proceedings.

Lunch
Standard DCPS lunch is offered to all children at LT. Our family tries to eat organic or locally grown foods so he brings his lunch each day. There is no refrigerator in the classroom so you would need to pack accordingly.

Nap time
3-year-olds have a nap time just after lunch at around 12:45 for about an hour. If your child falls asleep(ours seldom does), a short amount of unstructured play time is immediately afterwards which allows the sleepers to catch some extra zzz's. Our experience has been that most of the children do not actually fall asleep which means you can often end up with one unhappy camper at around 7:00pm.

Movies and TV.
To my knowledge the kids have only watched TV once. It was a short film in spanish for the spanish class.

Aftercare
I hope to provide a separate post about aftercare on a later date but until then, here are some of the basics.
After care is provided from 3:15 to 6:30pm if needed. It is part of the DCPS program and costs $5 per day. Parents are currently required to commit to the entire year even if you will only be needing it sporadically. The aftercare program for the 3-year-olds takes place in their classroom and NOT with the full assembly. Each day at 3:15. All children who remain at school walk with the teacher's aid to the assembly hall for snack time. After snack time they walk back to either the playground or to the class room. There are currently no extracurricular activities for the three-year olds other than songs, organized play and free-play. Adding additional programs such as music or dance or art is something I personally, hope to change with the help of other parents down the road.

1 comment:

  1. I heard from Ms. Johnson (the Pre-K teacher who also works on the afercare program)that they are planning to start more of an aftercare "curriculum" now that the weather is getting cooler. They wanted the little guys to spend as much time outdoors as possible while the weather was still warm, which I think was a good call. But I agree, it would be great to get some more organized extr-curriculars for the 3 & 4 year olds.

    ReplyDelete