r/kindergarten

today i got hit with “if the moon follows us home, does it follow everyone at the same time?” and honestly i just stood there fighting for my life trying to answer 😭

kindergarteners will casually ask something philosophical at 9 in the morning and then immediately move on like they didn’t just break your brain

what’s the hardest or funniest question a kid has asked you recently?

Hi! I want to have a friend in my son’s class over for a play date, since they are 5 I’m assuming the parents will stay? Would you drop your 5 year old over to a friend’s house? How would you phrase it? For context we met briefly on a school trip but don’t know each other well and it’s my first time reaching out for a play date!

My 5 year old boy somehow tracing letters has become our nightly enemy, he’ll build entire lego cities for an hour straight but the second i pull out the little worksheet he acts like i ruined his life. yesterday he fake yawned three times then slid under the table like a tiny drama king. i’m trying not to make school stuff feel miserable this early but whew lol. anybody figure out how to help their kid do kindergarten work without turning the kitchen into a hostage scene 🫠

** Cross posted ** Me and my wife have been feeling so bad as we recently had to make a decision to have our daughter repeat kindergarten. She is 5 years old and is going to be 6 at the end of June, so the teachers are saying she will not be highly affected in terms of age. She has to redo kindergarten because she has a speech delay and has been getting help for one since she was about 2 years old. She has an IEP and a speech therapist in school. The speech issue is articulating sounds and words which makes it difficult to get started on reading, her writing is better, but they are saying she needs to be reading at least a little before going into 1st grade. She also is not as confident and doesn’t ask for help in class which is not helping her because even if she does know the answer she might be hesitant because she doesn’t want to get it wrong. They’re saying another year will build her confidence. We are just worried how things going to affect her when all her friends are moving forward and she is not. The teacher is saying most likely she won’t be with the same students so either way she loses those friendships. We are also feeling guilty about not getting her a tutor sooner maybe that would’ve helped. We are just having many mixed emotions but don’t want her to struggle next year when she is already behind. We are just wondering if we made the right decision by keeping her back another year? Has anyone went through something similar and made it a second year in kindergarten to share some wisdom?

I feel like I’m running out of lunch ideas that actually come home empty from my kid’s backpack. Some days they eat everything, other days the “main lunch” comes back untouched and only the snack disappears.

I’ve tried sandwiches, pasta, fruit, yogurt, little snack boxes, basically all the usual stuff. The only consistent thing lately has been crackers and strawberries.

So now I’m curious what’s the one lunch or snack your kindergartener never skips? Looking for ideas that real kids actually eat at school.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice about having my daughter repeat kindergarten. Last week, her teacher asked me to come in for a conference and shared that she is recommending retention. She completed the LIGHTS retention scale, and the results supported that recommendation.

The main concerns are that my daughter is the youngest child in her class, her math scores have dropped the second half of the school year, her motor skills are behind some of the older kids, and her confidence has been decreasing. The biggest struggle has been math, especially subtraction and word problems.

Her teacher said my daughter is genuinely trying her best and pays attention in class, but she has started shutting down during math and telling the teacher that it’s “too hard” and that she “can’t do it.” On the other hand, her reading skills, emotional regulation, and overall behavior are all at grade level.

We talked with my daughter about possibly repeating kindergarten, and surprisingly she seemed completely okay with it. She didn’t seem upset about her classmates moving on without her.

My hesitation comes from hearing stories from people who hated being held back or felt it didn’t help them in the long run. I’d really appreciate hearing from parents or teachers who have experience with this, especially if their child repeated kindergarten. Thank you!

My child is graduating preschool this month. For the last year, they’ve been best buds with a classmate, and we’ve become friendly with the parents. We’ve had several playdates and they seemed like nice people, but over the last two months, I’ve seen a side of one parent that makes me want to pull back significantly.

The Red Flags
Overstepping Boundaries: During a school event, this parent directly confronted a 5-year-old classmate who was acting out, rather than speaking to the child’s parents. It was aggressive, inappropriate, and very uncomfortable to witness.

Lack of Social Awareness: At a recent kindergarten info session, they dominated the meeting with an aggressive amount of questions. It was so bad that I could hear other parents around the room whispering for them to stop talking.

The "Cling" Factor: The biggest red flag is that this parent recently switched their child to our specific elementary school district just so the kids could stay together.

The Dilemma:
I’m now very concerned that this person is going to be the "problem parent" of the grade—overbearing, abrasive toward other parents, and potentially "helicoptering" any kids who don't get along with theirs.

My partner believes that if the kids aren't in the same class, the relationship will naturally fade. However, I’m worried this parent is going to lobby the school to keep our kids together. We plan on being "busy" all summer to create distance, but we are looking at six years of elementary school together.

My questions for the group:

1. How do I maintain a polite "acquaintance" distance without being pulled back into a close friendship?
2. Should I proactively ask the school not to place our children in the same class, or will that make me the "drama" parent?
3. Has anyone dealt with a parent who "latched on" like this? How did it play out?

Hi! Would you be weirded out if your child received a summer play date invitation?

My daughter’s last day is Friday. She loves her classmates and would love to get together over the summer.

There is a student directory via the PTO but there are only a handful of kids/parent info listed and they are all much older.

I ordered some fun cards and was just going to write something like “Hey! Our kids were in class together! If you would like our kids to have a play date this summer, let me know! We like playgrounds, parks, splash pads, libraries, and the zoo!” and then my contact info.

Her teacher said this was totally okay. I won’t put names on them so easier to distribute and they will go to the entire class.

My husband said it’s weird. My sister also said it’s weird. Is it weird? Thanks!

We don’t think much about kindergarten, but it’s often the first place we learn how to exist around other people.

Sharing, waiting your turn, making friends, getting upset and learning how to calm down again — it all starts there in the simplest form.

It’s funny how those early years seem so small at the time, but they’re really where a lot of life’s basic lessons begin.

What is everyone getting their child's teacher for the end of the year?

My six-year-old daughter is about to finish kindergarten and she has throughout the year struggled having steady friends.

She is a very social and happy, loving kid. She is good friends with my friends’ kids, I have observed her behavior with them. She’s one of the highest scorers in the class and is doing very good academically. She’s my only kid.

She has reported to me several times through out the year that during the recess time, none of the girls play with her. They all have besties, but she doesn’t have one and she usually just plays in the sand or with the rocks alone by herself. When she asks them to play with them, they say yes and then started to ignore her during the game.

Whenever I try to bring up the topic, she gets sad and looks away. She doesn’t want to talk about it. I have to really act like I am her buddy and friend and try to get it out of her. When I spoke to her teacher, she told me that the girls may have some issues. Where sometimes these girls do not get along because my daughter gets rude when she’s angry and so they quarrel sometimes. The teacher said she doesn’t hit anyone or doesn’t use bad words, but get mopey when angry.

She doesn’t have a lot of friends in the neighborhood because we don’t have many kids here that are her age.

How should I handle the situation? How should I teach her to deal with it?

Hello mommies! I need some advice. I have a 4.5-year-old son who started school last year at 3.5 years old in pre-nursery because I was hoping to enroll him in kindergarten this school year.

He started reading at 2.5 years old, and now he can already read independently, count up to hundreds, do simple addition, and write simple sentences.

Now I’m facing a dilemma: should I enroll him in kindergarten or let him continue in Nursery first?

His teacher told me that he is academically ready, but maybe not socially yet. At school, he prefers to play independently and is very well-behaved. At home, though, he’s playful, chaotic, and very energetic.

I’m honestly confused about what would be best for him. Has anyone experienced something similar with their child?

Hey all!! My twins will both be headed to kindergarten next fall. One is still very much in the tracing stage but the other is doing really really well with writing her capital letters independently. The issue, however, is her pre-k teacher is encouraging her to use lower case letters as well, which make her writing less readable. So I guess I am wondering what matters more — having legible writing using all caps?? Or attempting the lower case letters too??

I know with my son (a rising second grader) they didn’t really start to care that much about lower case usage until early first grade. TIA!!

Is anyone else using Heggerty’s Bridge to Writing? I know it’s still fairly new. Finishing up my first year. I thought books 1 and 2 were do-able. Book 3 has been so developmentally inappropriate, in my opinion. Only my kids scoring 90th percentile or higher on iReady are really able to do what the curriculum is asking.

If you used it, how are you feeling? What are your thoughts?

My daughter is 4 and a birthday in early November.
We planned to send her for another year of preschool so she would be 5 turning 6 when starting Kindergarten. However, her teachers informed us that she is on par with or perhaps even ahead of all the students in her class emotionally, socially, and academically. They believe she will be bored doing another year of preschool and is ready to move on.

At 4 years old, she is also the same size as or larger than 5 and 6 year olds. She is the tallest in her class despite being the youngest.

On one hand, I do not want to rush her childhood or regret sending her early down the line.

On the other hand, I do not want her to struggle socially being a girl who is bigger than all her peers.

Thoughts?
If she’s on target or advanced socially, emotionally, academically, and physically is there any harm in sending early?

Hi. Son is 5. Worth it to mention he has ADHD Combined type. He attends prek 4. I’ll be posting this in the adhd parenting subs as well. My son is def hyper, impulsive, all the “adhd” things. But one thing that he’s really never been is mean for apparently no reason. Yes, he’s reactive and can be unkind when a friend has been mean to him… but we’ve never seen him intentionally try to hurt feelings… until now.

His teacher reached out today that this is the second time she’s had to talk to him about being unkind and making others feel sad. Apparently yesterday a student was having a rough day and crying for his parents all day. Well today, my son was behind him in line and said something along the lines of “no one’s coming to pick you up today. But someone’s coming to pick me up!” His teacher felt like this was intentional to make the kid sad and upset. I don’t disagree. The first time it happened she didn’t really give details, just said he was unkind unprovoked.

To me this is bully behavior and it’s disturbing. I understand he’s impulsive but I feel like saying something like that is idk…. Intentional? I spoke to him about it and he had zero explanation as to why he said that to the kid. We are a loving family. We do not speak unkindly to each other and every time he gets rude with us we put a stop to it and let him know it’s unacceptable. How can I curb this behavior?

I have several boxed learning games (y'all know the ones you get from Lakeshore), and they always end up torn up. The pieces have to go in a certain way to get them to fit right, which obviously kindergarteners aren't great at (especially if they are trying to clean up quickly) so they just end up ripped and bulging. Does anyone have a suggestion for a better way to house/store these games?

This sub will not allow pictures, so I have attached a link to a post I made with a picture of one of my boxes in case anyone needs to see what I am talking about.

https://www.reddit.com/user/reelfachedoors/comments/1ti153w/storage_suggestions/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Any ‘big’ ideas? I’m thinking maybe one of those giant Costco water slides? Maybe a Dino museum pass. Need ideas for grandparents who want to spend $200-300 and can’t possibly think of that many toys