Two Preschools at Once: Bad Idea?

My gut says to stick with one school, but I'm always for simplicity.

Ok, let me try to explore why I feel that way. I think that as she ages, her friendships will become more meaningful to her. A change now might be better, then, than a change going into kindergarten, I think that having her go to two schools could be confusing. Why not make playdates with her favorite friends from the original school and put her into the second one?

What's so bad about making new friends when she gets to kindergarten? Kindergartens are full of kids from all over. It won't be just the kids from Funtime there.

If she's doing well where she is now, I wouldn't change it. And I agree with littlek...two schools at her age would be confusing. Different rules, different procedures...too much.

The only problem I can see with going to two different preschools is if there is a difference in teaching philosphy - two different methods of teaching.

However, if all they are really doing is learning through play and your daughter adapts easily to different situations then I wouldn't worry about it.

The closest I can come to is that my daughter attended Pre-K and then went to gymboree once a week. She has also this summer gone to a camp associated with my work, a YMCA camp and will be going to a baseball camp for a few days starting tomorrow. She didn't have any problems or confusions (granted she is 6 now) and she is on the shy side.

As far as the concern for changing friends in kindergarten - I found when my daughter was going to start kindergarten that it actually made sense to move her from her Pre-K school to another school for kindergarten as most schools run K-6. I thought it would be better for her to move at the kindergarten level than at grade 1.

Nothing that you do is set in stone.

Sozelet is a sociable child and you need the private time.

How would this be different from spending time with both Granny A and Granny B?

If coping with two different preschools turns her into a harried, insecure, quivering neurotic, you drop one school.

My guess is that you will be the one who has days of confusion about what happens where.

Hi guys, thanks so much for your input.

Noddy, yep, that's closest to what I was thinking. Train of thought went something like:

"She really needs to spend more time with other kids. Once school starts again, we won't be seeing the regulars at the pool and library and such anymore. The ballet class is only 45 minutes a week. What other classes could I sign her up for? Hmm, maybe just more preschool? I wonder there are any openings at Playschool's morning sessions. Hey, I wonder if Funtime has any openings... that could be interesting..."

As Linkat says, I don't hesitate to send her to more than one class at a time. (Tumbling and ballet, say.)

There's nothing particularly bad about her making new friends when she gets to kindergarten. As it happens, in this community, about 80% of the kids she'll be going to kindergarten with are going to Funtime. But that's a "hmm, interesting" aspect, not a hugely important one.

I think staying at Playschool for the afternoon sessions is a given; it's not just her friends that she loves but her teachers. And frankly I'd much rather that she spends time with her friends at preschool than at playdates -- we've been doing playdates with her best friend all summer and while they're much better than nothing, they also require a fair amount of attention/ effort. (Not to mention cleaning up the aftermath of the little tornadoes...)

I think I'll find out for sure whether Playschool has any openings in the mornings and go from there.

I would definitely try out Funtime. I know it's a ways away, but when she goes to kindergarten she will probably not see her friends and teachers at Playtime anymore and might be affected by 1) not seeing the people she knows and 2) not knowing the people she sees.

If she goes to Funtime in the mornings she will get to make friends that she will be going to kindergarten with and she will get used to going every day, which will happen when she starts kindergarten. Is kindergarten in your area full day or half day?

If it were me, I'd start by doing both, and then perhaps gradually cut back the days at Playtime, assuming that Funtime works out as well. Of course, if you hate it or if it is just not a good fit, it would be better to stay with Playtime.

Children at the age of sozlet are very flexible and I doubt that switching to new friends in Kindergarten would be all that traumatic. My children were presented with a whole new set of friends when they entered Kindergarten and they did fine.I would stick with the preschool your daughter is in now, it fits your needs and both you and your daughter are satisfied with it.

Re: Two Preschools at Once: Bad Idea?

In terms of social interaction with other kids, I don't see how it would be much different from going to school in the morning, then to soccer practice in the afternoon. This works nicely for millions of German kids, so I'd just try out two pre-schools at once.

I am in the same situation right now where there are two preschools I want my daughter to go to. Your post came up in my search. I see it was from several years ago. What did you end up doing and how did it work out?

I'll wait with you for the answer, but good for you for noticing the date. You would be surprised at how many don't.

Hi there, sorry I didn't see your question earlier.

We ended up staying just with Playschool. I think it worked out well for her overall -- the teachers there were really superlative and I think set her up well for her school career.

There was some drama in that second year of preschool that I would have loved to have avoided but of course no telling if something similar would have happened at Funtime too. She was still close to the best friend mentioned here but became friends with another girl too, who wanted to claim her as a best friend, and there was a lot of stressful tug-of-war stuff that happened.

It was also definitely difficult for her to transition from Playschool to kindergarten. She was a big deal at Playschool -- everyone's friend, teachers loved her, she created (not "wrote" because she wasn't writing yet, but came up with the story), directed and starred in a play (yes, in preschool!), etc., etc.

Then in kindergarten nobody knew her (but almost everyone else knew each other) and class time was really jam-packed -- no recesses those first few months (half-day kindergarten). (There were supposed to be recesses but it was a new teacher who had a hard time fitting everything in, and recesses were the first thing on the chopping block.)

So the first couple of months were very, very difficult for her. It was not until about this point (Halloween) that she finally started being viewed as, well, herself. She dressed up as a punkish rockstar type, including air guitar and such, and several people were surprised -- "She's so quiet!" That shocked the heck out of me because she's pretty much never been quiet in her life. I think that was about when they finally started having time for recess too. It was around then she started to make some friendships, which only picked up steam from there. (She is still close friends with two of the friends she made in kindergarten; they're all now in 7th grade. She's also still friends with the preschool best friend, though they're not best friends at all, see each other maybe 3 times/ year.)

So, lacking a crystal ball it's really hard to say which way was better.

One other element that you may or may not be dealing with is that it turns out (I didn't know this at the time) that Playschool and Funtime had very different philosophies, and for that reason I'm VERY glad we went with Playschool. It was very loose and creative and based on learning the meta-elements of school (schedules, cooperating, etc.) and social skills and forming a basis for a lifelong love of learning, rather than the three R's. Funtime is very three-R's-based. My kid has excelled academically throughout (starting in about January of her kindergarten year and taking off from there) and I think the Playschool approach was best for her.

Littlek's advice to keep it simple also resonates.

So drama and difficult transition notwithstanding, I'm glad we stayed with just Playschool.

Hope that helps, let us know what you decide!

This is good idea, but two preschool at once is not good for children. Because this modern technology kids want sometimes got lot of thing. So use technology and d'nt take two preschools at one.