For over a year, knowing that Sophia will be soon making the BIG transition to kindergarten, Will and I started discussing preschool- would we send her? where would we send her? Do we NEED to send her? Those have been common questions flying around our household. Since she was one she has attended her current child care center and so far we have truly enjoyed our experience there- we feel they have greatly contributed to all aspects of Sophia's development so it was hard to think about sending her elsewhere. As she neared the age that we could consider preschool, our (mine) conflict was whether to keep her in her current setting or send her to preschool. Here are just a few pros/cons we considered:
Pros of Preschool:
Separate setting than "daycare"
Socially- meeting new kids and teachers
Preschool is located at our elementary school
Licensed teachers in early childhood field
FREE
CONS:
Clear across town from current setting- will need to move both girls to new childcare
Moving Sophia from somewhere she is comfortable
In the end, we decided to sign her up for Tiger Cubs Preschool located at Jordan Creek Elementary. I think when trying to make the decision of sending a child to preschool and developmentally they are track, you have to also take the child's temperament into consideration. Some children socially can adjust to new situations just fine while others may have a harder time. We knew that if she stayed where she went, she probably would get just as much out of it academically than if we sent her to preschool but our swaying decision was the social aspect. Even though Sophia calls her child care center, "school" we wanted her to develop a new meaning of what school looked like to make the transition to Kindergarten easier. We also wanted her to get out of her comfort zone and meet new children and new teachers to further develop her social competence.
We also started our child care search and have narrowed our search down and think we have found a potential child care home in our neighborhood who can transport and provide before and after school care for when she goes to Kindergarten. We have a lot of big changes coming up, with the girls starting new child care as well as Sophia starting preschool but we are so excited for the changes and to continue to watch both girls grow and develop.
