The Preschool Adventure Begins

I went in this morning to sign Keilana up for preschool (which starts two weeks from today--they go to school here from mid-August to mid-June!).  I've got mixed feelings about it.  I had no intention of sending my kids to preschool--I just thought to myself that part of my job as a stay-at-home mom is to prepare my kids for kindergarten. Intellectually and in most ways socially, Keilana is doing just fine without preschool (we could've started her last year if we'd wanted to).  We do counting games and work on letters at home, as well as playing lots of question games so she learns to think and analyze.  She enjoys all that and is already ahead of where she's "supposed" to be at her age.  She socializes with other children several times a week and plays very well with others (with the exception being Clayton, as the two of them play together more like brother and sister--one minute they're best friends, the next they're driving each other absolutely crazy).  When its required of her, she is quite capable of of sitting still and listening for long periods of time, she rarely talks back or whines to anyone but Doug and myself, and is good at committing herself to a given task until its complete.

BUT, she's very shy.  She's VERY attached to me.  And she does not adapt to large changes very quickly.  In the end she always adapts to them well, but slowly.  And kindergarten is 7 hours long here.  I guess a majority of kids are already in daycare (which costs parents money) for most of the day, so sending them to school all day (which is free) probably sounds good to most people.  I don't think Keilana will adjust well, going straight from being home with me all day--wandering to the park, doing our shopping, playing games and going swimming, etc.--to being in a classroom full of 30 unfamiliar kids and an unfamiliar teacher all day.  So we're going to put here in the three hour preschool program to ease her into it.  This should be especially helpful since we will be putting her straight into dual immersion in kindergarten, so that a third of her day will be conducted almost entirely in Spanish.  That's just a whole lot of changes for a 5 year old to make all at once.

The only hitch in this plan is that the free state preschool program has an income cap, and it appears there's a chance we may be just over that cap for a family of four.  I definitely don't want to pay for preschool.  The wonderfully helpful secretary I spoke to while filling out paperwork today told me that they have a few of programs they use that she may qualify for even if she doesn't qualify for free state preschool, so they think we'll still be able to get her in.  We'll see what they say when we take in her paperwork from her physical and TB test next week.  Wish us luck!