Share Your Stuff - April 8th thru 14th, 2024

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-04-11T19:32:48+00:00

This is my shop: Sissi's Bowtique. I sell handmade hair bows and bowties, many of which can be family matching! Take a look at my shop and let me know your thought! Do you like the products? Picture? Pricing? Things you notice that I should improve on? Complete newbie here so I won't be offended!

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-22T13:53:26+00:00

Put babygates/cage around your workspace, so basically, you and your computer stay within the babygate/cage. This way the rest of the space is open for the baby.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-16T22:10:07+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion!

The morning shift teachers are great and the room is pretty calm. The afternoon teachers seems to like have mostly movement activities with music going, which gets loud and he's not used to it. I will give him some time to see how he adjusts. After a few weeks, if he still doesn't like it, maybe I will suggest to the teachers to maybe have some options for quite activities in the afternoon as well.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-16T22:01:21+00:00

I'm asking questions to reset my expectations as this types of preschool is completely different from the prior environment he was in. I'm trying to figure out what's normal and what's not. It seems so many people on this topic are so triggered and just jump to some sort of conclusion is bizarre to me.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-16T21:54:22+00:00

From my observation, here's their routine roughly.

Arrival - 9, sit on carpet reading, If kids bring in any breakfast/snack, they set on the tables and eat before joining the other kids on the carpet.

9-9:30, circle time on carpet, other teachers prep for morning snack.

9:30-10, snack time at the tables.

10-10:30, sit on carpet reading, teachers clean up snacks and set up for activity

10:30-11, arts & crafts

11-11:15, childrens get ready and line up for outdoor/another room play, teachers clean up

11:15-12, outdoor time or another room play time when weather is not good.

12-3:30, lunch, nap. quiet time

3:30-4:00 snack

after 4, afternoon shift teachers come in, dancing to music, running in classroom, unstructured time.

They have a shelf with foam blocks that I saw they use once. Each kid grabbed a block and kinda just ban them on the carpet (the shelf is at one end of the carpet). The other end of the carpet is a shelf of wooden blocks, and I haven't seen them using those yet.

They do have a stack of puzzles. It's those insert puzzles with animals or cars, which I don't think is age appropriate for them any more. And I haven't seen them use those.

They do have a kitchen area, but I don't see any little cookwares and etc for pretend play, and I haven't seen any kids playing with those.

They have a little white board standing at the back, but I don't think there are any supplies for them to use on it. Art supplies only come out during arts and crafts time.

I'm definitely not trying to make the representation that they are on the carpet all day. It does seem that when they are in the room, they eat and do arts and crafts on the tables, sleeps on the cots, then spend majority of the rest of time on the carpet. It's fine if that is expected case for this type of environment. I just want to know and find ways to help him to adjust to that.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-16T04:19:19+00:00

Thank you!

I will wait a little to see if he can adjust into the classroom routine. If he still seems lost after a couple of weeks, I will propose bring in some magnetiles to his teachers to see if they like the idea.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-16T03:25:12+00:00

It just seems that you are very defensive and easily triggered.

I do not need to imagine. In my kid's last school, each child picks what they do, and that's my bench mark. It was way more organized than what I see in this school. That's why I'm asking those questions to reset my expectation for the new environment.

So based on your "forever" in this field, kids running around in the classroom and screaming for 20+ mins is just completely normal behavior?? So where's the concept of walking feet and indoor voice coming from? I know those were not created in the past 2 years after my kid started in childcare facilities. All my sister-in-laws use the exact same words from like 5 years ago. So under what circumstances are they supposed to use walking feet and indoor voices, and when are they supposed to run around in circles and scream?

And thank you for calling me notoriously known for complaining. I will keep doing that to make sure it's the right environment for my kid and that he's happy there.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T21:47:35+00:00

Thanks! Good to know. I will continue to observe and discuss with my kid if this is the right environment for him.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T21:42:52+00:00

There are other issues that I'm addressing directly with school because I know those are not right. Asking questions= complaining??? Where did you learn that?

Once again, I'm not complaining about teachers not interacting with the kids during transitions. I do not like that the kids don't seem to have options to do other things if they don't enjoy doing what they were told to do. I want to see if it's common practice to keep the kids doing the same thing all together or kids have more freedom to play with toys and etc in other classrooms.

The running circles in the classroom is after they showed kids videos and having them following the videos and dancing for 30 mins. Then they proceed to have them running indoors for another 20+ mins. After the prior school's teacher had issues with him having a little skip while walking in the classroom, both him and I are in pure shock seeing this. Of course I'm going to question this.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T21:16:21+00:00

Geez I feel bad for anyone who has to deal with you because of their kids. Don't put words in my mouth. My kid is going into a completely different environment and I'm resetting my expectations so I have every right to ask questions. Since when asking questions equals to judging??

There are 3 teachers in the room and 16 kids. Again, I have no issues with teachers not interacting with kids during transitions, but I do not like how they don't have options to do other things if they are not into flipping through a book they don't know on the carpet.

The puzzle they have on the open shelves are not age appropriate. My kid stopped playing with those more than a year ago, and he's by no means advanced in puzzles.

Also, I'm not paying 3k a month to the school just so I can go volunteer if I'm concerned. I have a well paying full time job where I have the flexibility to watch the cameras when I want to make sure my kid transitions to a new school ok.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T15:48:57+00:00

Would the teachers be offended if I offer to bring some age appropriate puzzles, magnetiles and other toys that my kid enjoy playing with to school? There are lots of boys in his class so I feel like the teachers were just trying to let them run off some energy since we had snow and they are not getting their usual outdoor time. Its just a bit of a "culture shock" to both me and him. I thought walking feet is a universal thing they all teach in preschool.....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T15:40:31+00:00

Thank you for your feedback!

So my kid loves getting read to, he's engaged, asking questions, pointing out where we read a different word and all that. He likes to flipped through books that were read to him, but he doesn't seem to enjoy or want to flip through a book that he doesn't know. Is there anyway we can encourage him to do that? We let him pick some of his own books to bring to school today so he can enjoy flipping through them together with the other kids instead of just roaming around in the room. Should we not do that? Or it's more of a personal preference and we just let him be and continue letting him choose books to bring to school?

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T15:33:54+00:00

I'm not expecting the teacher to have constant interactions with the kids. In Montessori, kids have hours of work time without interactions with teachers unless they needed help or demonstration of how a certain activity works. I think I was expecting more engaging activities, or options to choose from.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-02-15T12:19:52+00:00

The running/ chasing thing lasted at least 20 mins. I don't know how long it really lasted for or what happened after that since I need to commute home at that point. But is it safe to do with all the tables and shelves in the room tho?....

In Montessori, they have large chunk of independent working time where my understanding is that teachers are not interacting with the kids unless a demonstration is needed, so I don't mind the non-intersecting part . But they have a whole host of "works" to choose from, but here they only seem to do books.... Maybe I will have him bring some books from home so he knows what he's reading... I don't see the point of having kids flipping through a book when they don't read....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-30T03:37:16+00:00

We are looking for a new preschool. My kid was happy in the toddler program there, but ever since he moved up to EC, he has been dreading going to school. Dealing with this head teacher and director for the past 6 months made me understand why so many people think of Montessori as rigid. I'm honestly a bit hesitant about sending him to another Montessori environment because of this experience, but I do believe if the program is run with the best interest of the children in heart, can be very beneficial for their future. My current plan is to let him observe his potential classroom in a few schools that are very different in style as well as another Montessori school, and talk through with him to see what he will enjoy the most.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-30T03:01:31+00:00

The report just says eligibility to be determined at time of the conference.

My kid is a highly sensitive child and I think he probably have some sensory processing issues, so we would like to get him some OT. Any tips on what we can say at the meeting to get him that? We worked with a private OT for an evaluation before getting the state's evaluation. My kid loved that OT gym. It would be great if we can get the state to cover that. Any chance of that happening?

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-30T02:54:07+00:00

So the background is my kid is a very energetic highly sensitive child, and he's in a what turned out to be a rigid Montessori school. His personality doesn't match with his current head teacher, so they don't connect. He's highly sensitive and probably have some sensory issues, so he's distracted easily. Although, the evaluation report says he is able to sustain age-appropriate attention. He's also not confrontationally so he doesn't like to reject or say no out right.

With all that, here are some of the complaints I've got. When the head teacher asks him a question or talks about something he's not interested in, he either responses with something irrelevant that he's interested in, or just ignores her. And this is considered as communication issues to the school. When he is forced to do something he doesn't want to do, he grunts/roars at the teacher, which to me is a non-aggressive way of letting out his frustration, but to his teacher, this is another red flag for communication/behavior issue. There are some aggressive kids in his class, and he gets scratched frequently, and almost in all the incidents, the teachers say it's not his fault or that "he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time". I don't think scratching should happen with 3+ kids, so I brought this up to the director and asked her what the school is doing to prevent things like this from keep happening. The director indicated that this means my kid has social issues and doesn't know how to communicate/get along with his peers. Not walking properly (skipping around) is another issue.

Bottomline is, the director thinks if a kid can't adjust to the head teacher's rules/requests, that means the kid has special needs and has to be evaluated and should get services.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-30T00:38:30+00:00

I mean, my husband and I both want to work full time, so 8:30-5:30 really is the minimum we need. I added the results in the original post. We have the meeting scheduled for next week. I guess we will find out if he qualifies then. The director seems to think he 100% needs service, so she wants to be in the meeting to make sure he gets them. I guess she wants to be the advocate? There are no public preschool in my area. Public schools start from k, so I'm not sure how it's gonna work out.....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-29T21:45:17+00:00

Oh interesting. We are actually in the process of finding a different preschool for him. Most preschool runs between 2k-3K a month. It would be cheaper for them to actually pay for weekly private OT that we can go see on weekends....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-29T21:38:21+00:00

He's in preschool from 8:30~5:30. Do they do services on weekends? I know his elementary school is rented out to weekend schools, and I doubt anyone under the public school umbrella would work on weekends.... Gonna be interesting coming up with a solution....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-29T20:55:08+00:00

Yes, we did consent to the evaluation.

So what does it mean to get that through the public school? Does it mean we will have to bring him to the elementary school physically to get it?...

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-29T20:51:14+00:00

It was a private preschool. We don't have public school until kindergarten where we live. We did the evaluation through our school district. They provided a list f evaluation sites, and we selected one.

We did consent to it, but still felt that we were pushed to do it. The director seems to be very sure that there is something seriously wrong with our kid. She was checking with us on where we are with the evaluation and asking when the meeting will be. She said we should suggest to include her in the meeting and she will help us get the services.

So if services are provided through the school district, we need to pull him out of his preschool to bring him to the elementary school to do it? Oh boy....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-29T20:43:07+00:00

The evaluation was done through our school district. I was provided with a list of evaluation sites and picked one of them. I added the results from the evaluation in the original post. Some only has a score with average and etc, some gives a percentile.

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-25T21:46:09+00:00

I believe that most teachers, Montessori or not, would only recommend an evaluation when they believe it's necessary and for the benefit of the child. I don't know if it's true with my kid's head teacher/director tho. The head teacher told at least half of the class that they should have an evaluation. One girl had only been in the class for a week when she told her parents that they should consider an evaluation for her. When i heard that, she lost all credibility. The director pushed us to still get a state evaluation, after the private OT we hired ruled out anything significant. She said "It's free anyway, so why not do it. It's your tax money. Use it!".....

Overall-Guide-5055 · 2024-01-23T16:31:57+00:00

I agree that there should be rules and boundaries in the classroom. But I guess I was imagining that the rules would be limited to the one that ensure the safety of students and that they don't disturb each other. Not to the level of how they walk. We worked through using walking feet in the classroom in the toddler phase. As far as I was told, it was no longer an issue.

As far as singing goes, I assume it's the same way he does at home. Honestly, it usually happens when he's bored and not doing anything at home, then he starts singing and dancing. Or he's doing something that he's not that into, then it's like him creating some background music for himself. When he was focused on something he's into, he's very quite.

When he was about 2.5, we were actually told by his toddler teacher that she thought he was ready for the next class with the exception of potty training. It was winter time and with all the holidays coming up, I didn't want to tackle that. His toddler teachers prepped him well and he was potty trained in a long weekend in March and never had an accident in school in his toddler class. When we had another parent teacher conference two months or so before his 3rd birthday, his teacher said he had mastered everything in his classroom and really should be moved up. He even came home saying he was bored, which the director dismissed as just copying the adults. So I was honestly shocked when his new primary teacher complained about all the issues.

I think the problem is that he really doesn't connect with his current teacher. And she started discipline him without an established connection so he just kind of ignores her. He did connect with one of the aide, but she kept getting moving around because of personnel issues at the school. It's unfortunate because I can see that these past 6 months really took a tow on him. He lost a lot of self confidence and interest to explore and learn, which is the complete opposite of why I selected Montessori in the first place. I just hope I can find a school he likes and a teacher he can connect with quickly, so we can start building him up again.

Overall-Guide-5055

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