My Top 10 Reason why Preschool is better then Kindergarten.

My little man has started Kindergarten. And do you know what I have learned in the 3 weeks since Kindergarten started.  That preschool was waaaaay better.  Do you think I could forge his birth certificate and send him back to preschool???      Yeah..... I figured that was probably a bad idea.

So without further ado, here are my top 10 reasons why I think Preschool was better then Kindergarten.

10.  Preschool was at our church.  Our nice, safe, loving church, full of familiar faces, good hugs, and warm smiles.  A place where I could come and go on the property as I please. Where I could stop in the book store, or help in the pumpkin patch and catch a glimpse of my boy.  In Kindergarten, I know no one.  No one is hugging. And they pretty much tell the parents they don't want you on the campus.

9.   The dreaded bus in Kindergarten.  Mason LOVES the bus, but he is a boy, of course he is going to love some big yellow vehicle with many wheels.  In the bus, there are no car seats(yes, my 5 year old still rides in a car seat, I hope yours is too), heck there are no seat belts.  There are too many big kids for my liking and its not like I know the bus driver. I know his last name and his boss' phone number and THAT.IS.IT.  How do I know he isn't some crazy crackhead who is going to take my baby on a joy ride to the ghetto areas of New Orleans??  How do I know some big boy isn't going to pick on my sweet baby??  How do I know they will make it safely the entire mile to school?.  I DON'T and when you are a neurotic mom, like me, you wait every single morning with your cell phone close at hand, just in case...

8.  In Preschool we made friends.  Now, I am sure Mason will make more friends as the year goes on, and that is all well and good for him, but what about me?  In Preschool, all the parents waiting in the school hallways together for our kids classroom door to open. We saw each other every day, sometimes twice or 3 times a day.  In Kindergarten, I send my kid on the bus, so I don't meet any parents and even if he didn't take the bus, you aren't allowed to get out of the car in the carpool lane, so no good that would do.  We want out Preschool friends back!

7.  Nap mats.. Seriously.  Here are some comparison photos.  I got these photos from Google.

In Preschool, nap mats were like this (Okay, a little less nice, with solid colors) with pillows and blankets attached to them.

This is the Kindergarten "nap mat" Looks like a mat for a gym if you ask me. No pillow, no blanket, nothing.

6.  Communication with the teacher.  In Preschool, like I said before, we stood in the school hallway every morning and afternoon for pick up and drop off.  There was always a chance to chat with the teachers,  In Kindergarten, you either have to write them a note and send it with your kid, or call the school, leave a message, and hope to hear back in the next day or two. 

5.  Kindergarten classes have tooooooo many kids. There are 30 kids in my son's class and ONE teacher.  That poor, poor woman. In Preschool there was 16 and 2 teachers.  And 15 other kids besides your own, is the perfect number of kids to invite to a birthday party.  I would loose my mother trucking mind with that many kids running around.  So then you can't send party invitations to school to hand out because you cant do that unless everyone is invited and its not like I know any of the parents of these kids, to mail them invitations or even hand them invitations. Great. It should be super easy to throw birthday parties for the next handful of years.

4.  Bullying. Big kids, more kids, name calling, laughing, mocking, you name it. The stories I have heard from my friends who live in other states are experience the same kind of bullying in their Kindergarteners classrooms too. SERIOUSLY they are FIVE AND SIX!!!  What the heck are these kids learning at home?!?!? 

3.  Homework. Bogus. Enough said.
 

2.  The hours.  Last year I was able to send Mason to school for 3 hours a day and then pick him up and get to spend the remainder of the afternoon together, or I could have him stay at preschool for 6 hours and pick him up then.  We did mostly 3 hour days and a few 6's thrown in there through out the year.  Kindergarten is 7 hours a day, every single day.  And they expect him to sit still and be quiet.  How on earth do you expect a 5 year old boy to be quiet and sit still for that much time of the day?? I mean because if I can get him to sit for 15 minutes to eat dinner, I am ready to celebrate my success.

1.  Since when did Kindergarten become 1st grade?  Because when I went to Kindergarten (which I still have very strong memories of.. Thomas Paine Elementary..Mrs. Yates, the big yellow tube, getting to pick up the milk from the lunch room when it was your "special day" etc... ) it was half day and it was mostly playtime.  We also had music and art.  Kindergarten now, they expect so much out of your kid.. way more then they did when I was in elementary school.  Why does the world keep pushing kids to grow up faster?!  Seriously, they do it fast enough all on their own... just sayin'.

xoxo

Jess