His November birthday means he's either very young for his grade or older for his grade, so I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping him back so that he'll be older. That means that now that he is almost three, he'll have three years of preschool before starting Kindergarten. That seemed like so much that I originally thought I wouldn't put him in it this year. Praise God, things change!
First I thought I would do a structured play group with some friends. We would meet twice a week and take turns organizing something for the kids. That didn't pan out. (And I'm glad it didn't because it would have been a lot of work!)
Then, I signed up for a co-op "preschool" that meets at a park near our house. It seemed like a great combination of an outdoor environment with opportunity for playing with other kids and some project and learning times for development. I was required to work one day a week and then Z was able to go any of the five days of the week. It was very inexpensive but they make money by doing fundraisers and things like that. I thought it would be a great way to give him some structure and be able to participate myself. In the end, it wasn't for us.
First I started to call it a "play group" instead of preschool because I didn't want Z to get the wrong idea. It was mostly organized with play time, project time, snack, etc. However, there were so many kids (35-40) that it was like herding cats to get all the kids to participate. So, I thought, okay, I'll think of it as an opportunity to play with other kids only. But Z is not an out-going kid and really has to be drawn in personally to participate. He played happily by himself in the sand (lots of great sand toys) and only participated at snack time. I didn't like how it felt so anonymous. No one knew his name and no one was able to take the time to involve him. And then there was the amount of work for me personally. Working one day a week was pretty tiring and it was hard to balance Harper's needs on that day. And there were meetings and fund-raisers and social events.... I couldn't help feeling that I would always work way harder than what we were getting out of it. I called it the Costco of preschools. It was very inexpensive, but it was a lot of work and very mass-produced.
So, I don't want to bash co-ops, because they are all different and can be great depending on your needs. However, I'm glad it didn't work out because it made me research preschools and enroll Z this year. He's been going three weeks and he really likes it. There are only 10 kids and the teacher knows his name (of course! just pointing out the differences). I think the late start was actually a blessing because I didn't have preschool on my brain while potty-training Z. As if we needed any more pressure in that realm!
I'm just so thankful how God stepped me through this to end up here. I'm really pleased with it. The step-by-step to getting there was actually less stressful for me. By the time I started looking there were less choices which was a good thing for me! I'm amazed at how God cares about these things in our lives and guides us through it. And Z is amazed at his backpack!
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