A white envelope arrived in our mailbox a few days ago. It was for Pre-K program enrollment. I was reluctant to open it, partly because I don’t want to believe that my baby will turn four years old soon and the other part of me didn’t want to open it because I wasn’t sure what the cost would be.
We’ve been investing in The Boy’s early childhood education since he was four months old. If you’ve been following for a while, you’ll recall that I was laid off in October 2010. I thought about searching for another job, so The Texan and I decided The Boy would continue to go to school. At the time, enrollment at his school was very competitive and we didn’t want us to lose our spot if we pulled him out and I then found a job. Long story short, I didn’t return to a traditional job, I started this blog instead (yahoo!) and he kept going to the same school.
The Boy will be turning four in July and that means kindergarten is on the horizon. It’s not something that’s going to happen down the road, it’s going to be happening when I order my 2014 Life Planner. I want to cry. How do you go from a sweet, snuggly infant:
To a preschooler so fast?!
There are a few public Pre-K Programs in our area, but the curriculum seems lacking. From a financial position, we’ve already invested hundreds (okay, several thousands) of dollars into his early education. It only makes sense to us that we’ll continue to invest for his pre-K program. I’ll be sad come September when he’s away at school for six hours each day, Monday through Friday. I know that the private school we’ve chosen is what is best for him and for our family.
How did you choose a Pre-K Program for your child? How much is too much for private education?
Disclosure: This post was inspired by the novel Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. After witnessing her children’s school set ablaze, Grace attempts to find the arson as her teenage daughter lies in a coma in Lupton’s suspense thriller. Join From Left to Write on April 11 as we discuss Afterwards.
I think I got lucky – I have a home style pre-school 5 house down the street and it is pretty cool
That is lucky! Good for you – no commute!
They definitely grow up fast!
It’s so sad, isn’t it?! Happens too quickly.
It was easy for us – NY state offers a free Universal Pre-K program for all children who are 4. My son goes to a very highly-rated daycare/early childhood program for 2.5 hours every day at no cost to us. No way would we be able to afford that otherwise!
WOW! That’s great that NY offers such a great program to ALL children. Your head would roll if you knew how much we were paying!
due to a lot of different circumstances, my son actually went to 3 different preschools. My favorite was the montessori he went to.
The school we’ve chosen follows the Montessori teachings, too.
We picked the preschool at our Church’s school. They also had a Pre-K so we went with that as well. Just signed up The Girl for kindergarten at the public school her brother goes to last week.
We were lucky when choosing our pre-school program. We don’t have choices so it was easy. Plus the bus will pick him up at our doorstep and that saves me 12 miles a day. I say you have to do what is right for you if you have options. If we had them pre-school may be a different story for our son (I love his school though).
How is it that you don’t have any choices for your child’s education? Are you in a very rural community? I like the idea of a bus picking up – I drive 22 miles EACH direction and there is no one to carpool with either.
I do live in a rural area so there are not a lot of choices for Pre-school. One of the neighboring towns offers a private one I could have applied for but it’s 30 miles one way and only 4 hours a day. The one we go to is free actually and sponsored by the state. He is in the school where he will go now for pre-k through 12th grade. Yep one school for all the grades here and it has less than 500 kids total in the whole school I believe.