The preschool years begin in earnest

Bobbin started preschool in earnest this past Monday. we've been dropping her off in the preschool classroom at 8:30 every morning, and she's taken to it like a fish to water.

The transition was actually supposed to have started while I was in Barcelona. But the school really did a poor job of prepping us and her, and didn't provide us any pertinent information for us to actually formulate a transition plan for her, so it didn't happen. The director and I had words about this, and I think I got my point across.

Essentially their idea of a "transition plan" is to send a form letter home to the parent the day after the desired transition start date. So we're already running at a deficit. The form letter is a one-page, long-winded "hey, your kid is going to transition to early preschool starting yesterday; that's all we're gonna tell you here; ask us if you have any questions". It contained no actual useful content.

Such as:

1) What time of day does the early preschool class start (ie when is there a teacher in the class?)

2) Who is / are the teacher / teachers?

3) Which physical classroom is the early preschool classroom?

4) How many kids total are in the early preschool class?

5) What is the age range of the early preschool class?

6) What is the teacher-to-child ratio in the early preschool class?

7) What are the teachers' respective backgrounds - # years at this daycare; past childcare experiences; education?

8)Are the kids in early preschool ever combined with other age groups during the day? If so, when? What is the rationale for the combination? what age groups are combined? What is the teacher-to-child ratio in the combined class? In which physical space are they combined?

9) What is the potty break policy and how do teachers handle potty breaks? Are they a combination of scheduled breaks plus as a child needs one? What signs do the teachers look for beyond waiting for a child to say he/she needs to go potty?

10) Does the lunch and nap routine and schedule differ in early preschool from her current routine? If so how?

11) How is a new child introduced to the other members of the class who have been there a while? How does the teacher help the child to learn the his/her new classmates' names?

Pretty basic questions, yeah? Write them down. You'll need them. Because chances are your daycare won't proactively answer them either.

Now if I was the director, I'm thinking the form letter and transition package that I would send out would contain this info and more. A map of the facility with an X in the preschool classroom. A schedule for when the class begins / has a teacher present and where to drop the child off if it is before the class start time / before teacher is present. A short 1-paragraph bio and picture of each of the teachers in the class. A sample lesson plan / schedule for the day or link to the web site where one can be viewed (they have sample lesson plans online but the rest of the info is not available online. I looked). It would state the teacher-to-child ratio of the new class. It would explicitly list out differences in routine that the child would have to get used to in the new class. But that's just me.

So on Friday, once I managed to get answers to all my questions I was able actually formulate a successful transition plan. It went like this.

Bobbin still has a strong attachment to her original Toddler 1 teacher, Miss Anita, whom she started with when she was just under a year old when she transitioned from the infant room to the toddler 1. It's only natural. Miss Anita is an awesome teacher, and Bobbin loves her dearly. All the kids do. Miss Anita was her teacher for a very long time, relatively. And was her primary care giver during the day every day for almost a year. Even when Bobbin transitioned to Toddler 2 class, she still got dropped off at Miss Anita's class in the morning because Toddler 2 didn't start until 8:30. And because Bobbin never did really hit it off with Miss Marina, who is the only Toddler 2 teacher there from 8:30 - 9:30. In fact, the only person she'll leave Miss Anita's class for during the day other than myself and Tim, is Miss Brooks, who is the Toddler 2 teacher who arrives at 9:30. So that's been her routine for the last year. Drop off in Miss Anita's class before 8:30, and at 9:30 go with Miss Brooks into Toddler 2.

So knowing that, it becomes obvious right away to anyone even remotely familiar with Bobbin that getting Bobbin to willingly leave Miss Anita's class on her own with someone other than Miss Brooks is just not going to happen. So having Miss Kiera come into Miss Anita's class once a day to ask Bobbin if she wants to go to early preschool is always going to ellicit the same answer from Bobbin. A firm "no. I don't wanna go".

A much more likely path to successful transitioning is to not drop her off in Miss Anita's class in the first place. Then she's not being asked to leave a person and place with whom she is comfortable.

Duh.

But in order to do that, I need to know what time Preschool class starts. And which space is the Preschool classroom. And who the Preschool teacher is.

So these were the questions I asked on Friday. However the answer was not as straightforward as it should be. The first answer I got was that "Generally speaking", Preschool starts between 8:30 and 9 depending on when kids arrive and whether the infant teacher arrives on time to take over her class from Miss Kiera. And again, "generally speaking", Miss Kiera is the morning teacher and Miss Isabella is the afternoon teacher unless they are sick or on vacation or unless the infant teacher is late and Miss Kiera needs to stay with the babies until someone else can take over.

Yeah. So that didn't fly with me. How someone, supposedly educated and experienced in early childhood development, doesn't understand the necessity of a dependable, predictable schedule and a consistent primary care provider is beyond me. Those are the toddler basics. They are the tenants of caring for a toddler. Be structured. Be predictable. Be dependable. Be consistent. Be routine. Be those things and your munchkin will be content. Be those things AND be nurturing and affectionate and your toddler will be happy. Throw in some silliness and creativity on top of everything else and she'll be in toddler heaven.

So after a few words with the director about the ambiguity of this "plan" I finally got a grudging answer that Miss Kiera is the preschool morning teacher, and the preschool class will start at 8:30am every morning and Bobbin can be dropped off in the preschool classroom at this time.

Miss Kiera is somewhat of a known entity to Bobbin; she was in the infant room part time when Bobbin was a baby and Bobbin enjoyed interacting with her. Miss Kiera is also much more affectionate and playful and silly with the kids than Miss Marina, the toddler 2 teacher to whom Bobbin never formed any kind of attachment, so Bobbin automatically feels more comfortable with her. Almost all the kids do. Miss Kiera gets down on their level to interact with them. And the kids trust and love her.

So Friday afternoon, after gathering all of this info from the director, I went over to Toddler 2 to pick Bobbin up, and took her over to the preschool classroom. We walked around it together and explored every shelf and cubby and piece of art hanging on the wall and book in the book bin so she felt comfortable and knew where everything was. We found a box of noisemakers that Bobbin loved and we banged on them. We sat down on the carpet and read books. I introduced her to the teacher. I took her out to the preschool play area when the rest of the class went outside.

And the rest of Friday afternoon and all throughout the weekend up to and including the Monday morning drive to school, I talked with Bobbin about early preschool, and what time it started, and how we were going to go straight to that class from now on because Miss Anita's class was full of new babies transitioning up, and how Miss Kiera and Miss Isabella were her teachers and how Miss Kiera used to play with her when she was a baby. I talked about how much fun I had with the noisemakers. I asked her what her favourite thing in the classroom was (the noisemakers). I talked about how much bigger the preschool playground was and how many more fun things there were to do in it like balance on the edge of the sandbox (she LOVES balancing on stuff). And we talked and talked and talked about it every chance we got. Because that's how Bobbin gets used to something new. She needs time to talk about it, and think about it, and ask questions about it, and resist it, and then come back around to accept it. It's just how she works. and so Monday morning in the car when she started to express a little apprehension at starting the day in preschool I reminded her of the noisemakers and asked her to teach me how they worked when we got to school. That got her looking forward to the class.

When we arrived we found the noisemakers and started playing. And as other kids arrived I asked Miss Kiera what the child's name was and then I'd tell Bobbin the name, and introduce her to the other child, and then we'd play a little alphabet name game so Bobbin could remember everyone's names. She feels more comfortable knowing who everyone is and being able to call them by name. The way I'd get her to remember the names is by telling her which letter the child's name begins with and asking her to jump on that letter on the alphabet carpet on the floor. She'd jump on the letter and shout out the kid's name. Of course the other kid would think that's cool, cause it'd be all about him (I'm not being sexist; Bobbin is one of two girls in the 9-child class), so he'd come over and imitate Bobbin. "Ethan starts with E, Bobbin. Where's the E for Ethan?" I would ask. "E FOR ETHAN!" Bobbin would shout, jumping on the E. Then Ethan, hearing his name, would come over and shout "E FOR ETHAN" too.

And that's been our morning for four days in a row now. Four days in a row dropping her off in preschool. And four days in a row leaving for work without nary a tear being shed by her or me. She's all smiles when I leave for work. Running and playing, jumping on letters, making noise with the noisemakers, and calling the other kids' names.

I'm thinking I can consider the transition to preschool a success :-)

One other side note - an additional benefit to the preschool transition. Because all the kids in the preschool class are potty trained (it's a prerequisite), and because the bathrooms are in the same physical space as the preschool class (they don't have to walk down the hall or go into another class), Bobbin's been having much fewer accidents than in Toddler 2. Toddler 2 is the class next door to preschool. And in toddler 2 most kids are still in diapers. And as such the Toddler 2 class doesn't have bathrooms of its' own; they have to use the preschool class's bathrooms. Which means to let a child go potty in the bathroom, a teacher needs to physically leave the classroom to take him or her to the bathroom in the classroom next door. Which means the teacher has to bring 6 other kids with her to tag along so the proper classroom ratio is maintained (you think herding cats is hard? Try herding toddlers; invariably by the time they are all gathered together the one who had to pee has already done so in her pants) or the teacher has to snag one of the "floats" (wandering teachers who cover the breaks) if there is one and have the "float" stay in the class or have the "float" take the kid to the bathroom (the latter usually doesn't work because what kid wants to pee in front of someone he/she barely knows?). And so in Toddler 2 because the focus wasn't exclusively on the potty and it wasn't immediately accessible in the same space, more accidents tended to happen with those kids who were trying to learn to use the potty. at least, that's my theory for why Bobbin has fewer accidents in Preschool.

All in all, Bobbin actually seems happier and her mind and body seem busier. She needed the transition for many reasons, not the least of which was that she just wasn't getting enough stimulation in the toddler 2 class. In just the 4 days since her move to toddler 2 I am seeing a more confident Bobbin. She is quicker to try new things - like climbing the curved bars on the jungle gym in the preschool playground. She is willing to try to do more things for herself, like putting on her own underwear (although I have a funny story there too; but that's a separate entry) and pants by herself without being asked; dressing and undressing her dolls. She has learned even more letters of the alphabet by sight; she is reading many more books (and she was already reading a lot), she is interested in playing board games, and she doesn't watch tv. You can almost see all the new connections being made in her brain on a minute by minute basis. The transition, so far, has definitely been a good thing.

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