the school questions start early

the one rule i have for boo right now is "one class at a time." i don't want be one of those crazy moms who puts their kid in every conceivable class. i just think free unstructured play time is too important at this age.

so right now he is going to 2 hours a week of pre-preschool at the park district, on tuesday mornings. it's indoors, 9 kids / 2 teachers, they do a nice art project and some other things every week. it's really close (just 5 minutes down the road) but i have to stay within 20 minutes, partially to be close in case of poop accidents, and partly because you couldn't drive much farther than that and accomplish anything and be back in time.

he also goes to 1day/week of day care on mondays while i do my clinic volunteering (which i'm not counting as a class). he seems to like it, the teachers seem nice, and the place gets good reviews. the kids are always behaving well and i've been there at a variety of times. they play outside and when weather is bad they have a beautiful gym area. i know they do art stuff, but there are never art projects waiting for me. i think it is because they don't make every kid do the same thing at once, they let the kids sorta choose what activity they want to do. because there are always a variety of activities available, i think given the choice between sandbox/cars etc and an art project, boo will rarely choose art.

so now i'm trying to decide whether i should continue with the tuesday morning park district program, or switch him to a thursday chinese immersion preschool in a class with 3-5 year olds. we've done the parent-tot classes there in the past and he seems to like it well enough. i just didn't do it this semester because a) there was bad highway construction between here and there, making transit painful and b) he wasn't quite old enough for the drop-off class.

advantages for the park district class:
- really close
- 2 hour program, as opposed to 85minutes
- he knows the teachers
- local moms and kids ... makes more local friends that he's likely to see later on
- messy art projects
- kids are all exactly his age

disadvantages for the park district class:
- no chinese, obviously
- the errands that i can do locally are not really ones i need to do without him, usually. for example, he's pretty good grocery shopping with me. and if i need to do a close errand, i can often pop out if DH is home anyway.

advantages for the chinese immersion class:
- he gets an ear for a language (my goal is certainly not fluency; i just want him to have an ear for it, so if he wants to learn it later it will be easier for him)
- it's in an area that i love going to anyway, an area of "useful errands" - container store, trader joes (though i love taking him there with me), nordstrom rack, nice mall, bank.
- it's on thursdays, which gives him more of a break after the monday daycare day. which is nice, because not only is he away from me all day monday, but he also doesn't nap - and he usually takes a 2-3hour nap every day. so he has seemed to be a bit on edge monday night/tuesdays/and even into wednesday a bit.
it's also nice to be able to space apart my days without boo.
it also happens to coincide with the workday of one of my good friends in the area who works thursdays/fridays/saturdays, freeing up tuesdays for a possible playdate with our kids. and if there's one thing i've learned with this interstate move, it's that good friends are important to cultivate and work at spending time with. but i have no idea what her kid's schedule will be like next semester anyway.

disadvantages for the chinese class:
- he would be the youngest in a class of 3-5 year olds. even though his language is far above most average 3 year olds, he's already kinda on the quiet side in groups.
- distance - it's about a half hour drive each way.
- probably not as many messy art projects, but i don't know for sure


when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it's messy art projects (which i want him to do in a program) vs ear for the chinese language, and tuesdays vs. thursdays. so far the chinese class is winning.