Kindergarten & Bedtime

Hi Denise! How fun! Kindergarten is a blast and more and more school districts are going to full-day programs which is great! We are from out of state and both my older kids did full-day kindergarten and it was much better than the half-day program that my youngest went through! Check with your school district to be sure they haven't changed to full day programs. Anyway, we discovered that allowing for homework (yes they do get it durring Kindergarten!) dinner and activites that our normal 9pm bedtime was fine...even though they all went in the AM. Keep in mind that you may have to adjust depending on your childs energy levels & activites as well. Plan ahead for homework. Decide where you want him to do it and when. I always had mine do it at the dinning table after school (usually a snack was requiered at that time anyway) while I fixed dinner and could help them as well as listen to all the events of the day! Plan on where you want him to keep his school stuff, backpack and library books. I never let them take a library book to their room because it could get mixed up with our books and forgotten. Also now is the time to put together a system for keepsakes of school years! I bought the Sterilite ShowOff's from Walmart for each of my girls. You put hanging file folders in them (O. for each year I color coded mine, O. color for primary, O. for middle and a third color for high school) to keep final grade cards, school yearbooks, programs for any events they were in that year, and a project or picture or two that they wanted to keep "forever". You can decorate the box with fabric paints, or save and put their name tags from the first day of school on the inside showing out...or pictures of them, you just get creative! Make copies of his emergency contact cards and shot records and keep those handy as well, you never know when your gonna need to know when his last tetnus shot was for the snow storm of forms you will have to fill out for every activity or event that comes along!

Enjoy this time!! I can't believe that my oldest is a junior in highschool already! Remember, if you take him to school or he gets on that bus the first day...DON'T let him see you cry! Smile til it hurts! The toughest part of our job is letting them grow and go and you are on the first step! Good luck, best wishes & get ready for the PTO/PTA!!

Hey Denise!!!
I put Adam down between 8-9pm every nite...that's been his bedtime for the last 2 years. He'll be AM kindie (you know my reasons) and he'll need to get up early for that reason.
Are you going to the BUS orentation on the 13th? My husband will be taking Adam since I work that day. Call me!!

My niece was in a full day kindergarten this past school year. Her bedtime was 7:30-8:00. This has been her bedtime all along as she has always gone to daycare and needs to be up at either 6:00 or 6:30.

I think between 7:30 and 8:30 is good for most kids. My son, also just starting kindergarten, used to go at 8:30 but since I moved it to about 7:45 I notice a big change in his behavior at bedtime. So much better! And he still gets up at the same time (about 7 AM).