daycare vs kindy

Day care is usually all day
Kindy have two sessions usually with public kindys the afternoon sessions are three times a week tues , wed or thurs and for three to four olds when they are four they usually go five mornings a week until they are five and go to school. kindy can be good in that they tend to meet kids they will end up going to school with

Bizzy wrote: BellaBabysMum wrote: Kindy is like a massive playgroup supervised by carers? Not true at all!!! Kindy may not be as structured as some day cares and that is especially so in the afternoon sessions...it is more about learning through play. However once the kids turn four they start morning sessions five days a week, and that has more structure and is designed more at getting the kids ready for school. It is still very much child led by they have definite rules and structures and a curriculum they have to follow too. My son has learnt so much about sea creatures and dinosaurs and all sorts of stuff i dont know yet and he has only been ding mornings for one term. yep what deb said i would love to endjames to kindy but we dont have the best kindy were we live

I thought they had to be toilet trained for Kindy????

most wont take them till they are 3 and toilet trained. sometimes they will take them with them wearing pullups tho, depends on the kindy.

BellaBabysMum wrote: I have been told that daycare is better as they continue on with the care of the child there are more tutors per child and also they continue with toilet training etc etc Kindy is like a massive playgroup supervised by carers? We wont be sending Ella to kindy she will do the daycare thing a couple of times a week. She already does once a week.

I think you are confusing Kindy with playcentre?????

I think, personally that daycare is just that. Day Care. They both have an education curriculum, though and like Biz said, kindy is a bit of a free for all in the beginning, but the benefit there is that all the kids are similar ages, so developmentally thats got to be a plus.

We do day care and kindy, well Pre School. Jake has just started at the pre school that is attatched to the school that Jake will be attending (a catholic one) so he is getting to know the kids he will be "growing up" with so to speak. The ratio there is 1 to 5 and the session he attends has only 20 kids in it. We absolutely love it.

We had decided that he would be doing kindy or whatever from 3.5 as I think by then he would need something more as he is a fairly smart kid, however a place came up for Jake at the pre school (our first choice) straight away, so we took it. When he moves uo to 3 morning sessions a week, (he does 2 afternoons atm) he will stop day care.

Wow, a novel!!! I'm just really loving the kindy thing, ATM.

ETA at our centre, the cares work with you in regards to TT and other things in the home. Jake is TT now, but wasn't when we started and they were great.

Edited by fattartsrock

Maya was in daycare as a baby, but as soon as she hit three we put her into preschool. OK, so we chose a private Montessori preschool instead of a kindy, but the basic premise is the same - we felt that whilst daycare were providing an excellent care environment for Maya, they weren't providing the educational opportunities and stimulation that we felt she needed once she got older.
We'll do the same with the gremlins. My personal feelings on the subject are that from 0-3 it's all about care and providing a safe, supportive environment for baby/toddler but from 3+ they need to be actively learning and getting ready for school and IMO kindy/preschool is a better option for that.

often kindy kids are alot more independant as the teachers let them do things for themselves.
daycares have a higher adult/child ratio and usually the kids have everything done for them
alot of our kindys have gone to 6hr sesions however alot are still sesional.
sarahs was 4+yr olds from 8.30-11.45 and under 4's from 12.45 -2.45 or 3.15
it was great

all kindy teachers now have to be registered teachers alot of them hold teaching diplomas(not just early childhood certificates)
even the teacher aides now have to be trained.
i think most daycares teachers have to be trained or in training now also???



Edited by catrad

RachandJack wrote: fattartsrock wrote: BellaBabysMum wrote: I have been told that daycare is better as they continue on with the care of the child there are more tutors per child and also they continue with toilet training etc etc Kindy is like a massive playgroup supervised by carers? We wont be sending Ella to kindy she will do the daycare thing a couple of times a week. She already does once a week. I think you are confusing Kindy with playcentre????? Not true either. Playcentre have some of the highest adult/child ratios. Yip its not structured like daycare but the kids get to choose what they want to learn about and then an adult takes it from there. It looks like they just run free but thats not the case. I'm not going to threadjack but there are a lot of ebenfits to freeplay.

Yep, I love playcentre as well, but I just didn't have the time to parent help, to be honest. Plus I know that by the time Jake gets to the end of this year he will need a bit more structure, hence preschool.

I was more getting at the Large playgroup and a bunch of carers comment! - no Offence, Jess, either!! I just thought maybe she was thinking more of playcentre RE the structure thing.

Yes I know she loves school and she did enjoy kindy muchly
have another child and thenyou can go back ther oh but engagement or wedding first

We have had kids at both pre schools and kindy and I have to say it's really just a case of shopping around.

One pre school was useless and M picked up way more at Kindy.

J only went to kindy and did learn a bit but not a lot when he went to school, however the second he went to school he thrived. although I do believe a lot of them have changed now. I did love the teachers there and they did do some really good things.

A goes to pre-school and they have a wonderful programme for the kids including putting them in their groups for some age appropriate learning. A has known her full alphabet and colours and shapes and how to count up to 20 since just before three, and that comes down to pre school.

I like the fact the ages are different at pre school as once at school they are mingling with children older than them, so being little and around "Bigger Kids" has it's advantages.

Basically different environments and structures suit different children and I really suggest shopping around and observing the kids at these places and you will know what suits you and your girl.

Both can have huge advantages, but they are only as good as there staff!