Parents of preschool-aged children are being invited to bring their little ones for a taste of how school works.
School District 47 is again hosting Ready Set Learn sessions aimed at providing information about how to support three- and four-year-olds’ learning and development.
Rita John, head of the district’s early learning programs, is organizing this year’s sessions.
StrongStart, another provincial early learning program which runs at schools, operates from a classroom, is more family-directed and gives children a chance to connect with others and start to build some of the skills that will help them succeed at school.
Ready Set Learn, a one-day-per-year event, introduces the rest of the school and the principal and helps to establish contact with the kindergarten teacher. It aims to develop positive connections between families, the school system and local community agencies.
“It gives an opportunity for parents and children to come to experience school at a level appropriate for their age,” said John, adding that the sessions do not present a kindergarten day because three- and four-year-olds would not be able to handle it.
The children attend 10-minute sessions at various stations throughout the school, including the gymnasium, library and music room.
They also visit the kindergarten class and the five-year-olds “get to be a big buddy,” she said.
The kindergarten students have recently gone through the transition themselves and at school they also have big buddies. “Often kids just think that it’s so cool that they could be a big buddy,” she said.
The idea behind the program is to address the worries that families and children have before they start school.
Over the years she has been involved with putting the program on, John has seen just as many three-year-olds as four-year-olds coming to the sessions.
Attendance varies from school to school depending on what programs are offered there, she added.
Each family who attends a session receives a package with a glue stick, some pens and a pair of children’s scissors. Also included is some information about different skills that preschoolers can learn ahead of their first day of kindergarten.
The next sessions for the program are at Edgehill Elementary School on Wednesday, April 23, at Texada Island Elementary School on Friday, April 25, and at Henderson Elementary School on Tuesday, May 6. To register for any session, readers can call 604.485.6164.
