Is Nursery necessary? Will DD miss out?

[ilovetochat]

My dd is 2.1 so is due to start school nursery half days Sept 2010, so i need to apply end of this year.
As she is a July birthday she doesnt have to start school till year 1 when she will be 5.2.

Im a SAHM so have no personal need for her to go to playschool/nursery/reception.
If reception isnt statutory then surely reception is a settling in year.

Therefore why am i being offered playschool place to prepare for nursery, then nursery place to prepare for reception which prepares for year 1? Are all these years of preparation necessary and what do they learn in nursery for example?

I am considering not sending dd to nursery, keeping her with me and doing lots of activities with other children so she is socialising and then sending her to reception when she is 4.1 but seeing that year as her preparation for school and letting her take it at her own rate.

Am i totally wrong? Does she need nursery?

Btw, if dd wants to go to nursery i am happy to send her and im sure she will change lots in the next year and may want to go off with friends etc. This isnt about me keeping her with me, its about not rushing her into school.

thanks alypaly, its good to hear nursery can be good.
most people i know in RL seem to send dc cos its what you do without any thought and see it as free child care but i want to be sure its the best for dd.

A problem that you may have is that there may be way fewer children if her age around for her to socialise with when they all start nursery. My dd has got a v active social calendar but we are at a bit of a loose end now in the mornings because all her friends have started nursery. Because of her birthday she isn't due to start til October. Today at the toddler group she was very unimpressed that there were only little ones there and she was bored without her chums.

There will be a huge change in your dd in the next year. Last year I couldn't have imagined it but my dd is now dead keen to go and in fact tried to tag onto a nursery group outing when we were in the park yesterday. Why not apply then you can decide next year whether to accept the place

i think thats what im going to do nulgirl, have a look round a couple and apply in november when the forms are due and see how i feel next year.

ilovetochat the nursery mine went to was definitely not free,it was the same price as the private school that it was attached to( (definitely not free child care). We pulled out all the stops to get them both to the same nursery but well worth the sacrifice. The first night my eldest went,was the first time he ever slept through the night, he needed the mental stimulation. I think they are like sponges at that age and the more they are shown the faster they learn.we had researched the school prior to putting them in the nursery so we knew it was agood school and a brilliant feeder school for their senior years

i would have loved to have both my children at home til they were five but we had to look at their needs too. I love being a mum and i would love to have little ones now...I never really wanted anyone to look after them between 3 and 5years, but when i saw what the nursery or pre-school, as they called it, was offering in terms of education, there was know doubt what to do.
I realised when i started with flash cards aat 2.5yrs old that they both needed a more structured environment,which is what they got and now I have got 2 wonderful sons who I am just totally proud of in every way

ilovetochat..gald i managed to trace your threads.....took quite a while...Where are u takink dp for his birthday? does he know or is it a surprise?

alypaly, what sort of flash cards? words or letters? dd loves to race around jumping and climbing and dancing and singing but she also likes some quiet time and loves being read to, drawing, jigsaws (9 piece so far) and she has magnetic letters so i go through them and she knows about 15. and she sings the alphabet song through with me and counts to 12. i try and mix what she does though, we did play dough this afternoon.
dp knows we are going on holiday, i asked him if he wanted a party or a holiday and he chose holiday as we havent been abroard for 3 years. we are going to majorca on a stay and cruise, i cant wait.

I found out what series of books they wud be using at nursery and year one and i just took individula words out of the book.ie.names like Biff and Kipper and then small words like good bad , the and until i had got over 200 words. Each week i got my boys to pick say 12 words and then we would play games with them. I laminated the cardboard so they wud last.
Then i put them face down,he picked a word and then we wud say it. went through all 12 words in the same way repetitively...shuffled them put them face down and then tried to see how many he remembered. Made it into a game. Then at the end of the week just flashed the card up to see if he had remebered them...got about a 90% hit rate as it was made into a game. You can change how you do it suit but make it fun by putting a smarty on top of the word they find difficult. Initially they onlt teach them photographic learning and then they develop the phonetic side later

thats a great idea thanks, i might start things like that.
dd seems to struggle with colours, she can match colours like put the green balll on the green circle, blue on blue etc so i know she can see a difference but she always calls white black and black white and also mixes red and green (which worried me colourblindness).
most things she picks up quickly, but i can tell her what red is over and over and she calls it green. weird.
me and dd werent seeing eye to eye this morning, she kept crying and i kept snapping so i took her for a walk and chatted and had a laugh outside and it turned it round to her being really happy and i feel much better for it.
you busy today?

yes quite busy,but nearly done now.Trying to get a few things together for ds2 celebration bbq for his exam results. He is hoping to have about 20 of his best friends round for a barbie at about 7.30pm.Going to leave it til monday as alot of them have gone to the concert in leeds.Just trying to make some space in the freezer for the burgers.Told them alcohol is to be limited as they are not quite 17. Dont mind them having one or two but after that it is up to them but i have laid down the law about too much to drink. They are at the fascination stage with alcohol, so no doubt a few of them will push their luck.But in general they are a really nice crowd of guys and girls. Its not going on too late so hopefully they will be sensible. Sorted out all the charcoal and the marquee is up and has withstood the last few nights gusty winds.The exam results seemed to end in a bit of an anti climax so it would be nice to have a get together b4 they go back to school in sixth form next friday.

keep your eye on the red green confusion as this is a common colour blindness.

its lovely of you to do all that for him, you mustbe so proud
the colours do worry me as it seems to be the one thing that stumps her. but at baby gym she gets all the hoops and puts them on the right cones and never mixes the colours up so she must see a dfference.
i dont see any difference in shades and find yellow and light green difficult to distinguish.

yellow /green is not a recognised colour blindness, but red /green is. Just because she is putting the hoops on the correct cones does not rule out colour blindness because she will see them as all opposites and will still put red on red and green on green but she might still see them as the opposite colour if u get my drift

Of course it's not necessary, but as so many children enjoy it (and parents enjoy the break) it would be foolish not to even look. Children across the continent have no formal schooling until they're seven and so it's worth remembering early attainment is no indicator to outcomes at eighteen (within reason). We ship our dcs off at five and still have a very high teen pg rate and poor literacy....

Socially I think children need some interaction and independence comes from finding some things out without Mummy or Daddy, not exclusively though.

alypaly... I do hope other parents know you'll be letting their dcs drink....[still only have little dcs and so forgive me the teen protocol]

yes dont worry all the parents know as i would not allow them to drink without parental permission. I had a massive argument when a parent who supplied my DS2 with alcohol when he was 15 years old, with vodka jellies and some of the children were nearly unconscious.I nearly reported the parents and the offending children to school as i was horrified at their morals) I am personally very anti alcohol and have told them that they need parental permission in the form of a phone call.
Unfortunately they become very inquisitive at about 15 and the more u ban it the more intruiging it becomes. My youngest who is 17 in october has tried alcohol,with my supervision on holiday and when he approached the bar for a lager on holiday he was challenged for his ID and that was in Greece. I was pleased to see that they were more strict than our off licences?and other parents seem to be.I will also be there to supervise the bbq,so I would stop them from getting silly anyway.
Unfortunatley once they get to university as my eldest is...he is in his 3rd year at nottingham....there they met the drinking culture....it is frightening how much most if not all students drink.They unforunately dont realise the damage they can do or they dont believe it will happen to them.
I am personally not a drinker,maybe 2-4 units a week tops so believe me I am strict

I took ds to play groups and mum and toddler stuff at the local library etc but he didn't go to nursery just reception.Tbh I wanted him at home he was so little and that stage goes so quickly!

I am just glad uni is only 4 years on average as i think we are breeding a generation of alcoholics and potential pancreatitis patients. I wish there was a way to scare them off it but when you reflect back to our teenage years, maybe it was the same with some teenagers....maybe it wasnt in the media as much as it is now. I nag my son and his mates to boredom about it as i see the end results working in a pharmacy. Also i have had pancratitis...NOT DUE TO ALCOHOL so i know that the pain is second to none...not even childbirth.. that is a breeze compared to pancreatitis pain...belive me.

ime its the teenagers who arent allowed any alcohol at home that go crazy when they first go out or go to uni as they dont realise how strong it is.
i used to drink wuite a lot as a teenager but always knew where i was, who i was with and luckily never got into any trouble/danger. now i wish i hadnt drunk so much but i only drink about 2 units a week now and didnt drink when pregnant or bf so hopefully no damage done.
noddy, thats partly how i feel, dd is 2 and in another 2 years will start reception, im not sure i want to send her off every day next september but she may be ready for it by then. was your son at any disadvantage when he started reception.

ilovetochat some of the nurseries do half days which might be more suitable and they only charge the daily rate

dd will be entitled to 2.5 hours free nursery from next september so at most she will be doing mornings or afternoons.
im gonna look round some before deciding and will apply anyway as a year is a long time.