Multiage Classrooms

[skw444]

Does anyone have a child who is in or has been in a multiage classroom, specifically K-1? Or any teachers that teach one? We're trying to decide about this for our daughter who starts Kindergarten in the fall and I'd love to hear other people's first hand experience with it. Pros/Cons?

 

[RF536]

We our finishing up our 2nd year of a K-1 class with DS7. Our K-1 classes our team taught, so some of the time each day is spent with 2 classes combined into 1 large class of 44 kids and some of the day is spent in the smaller class of 22 kids. Our teachers allow each kid to move at thier own speed, so a kindergartener who excels in math will end up working with the 1st graders during math. The learning centers are set up to address 3 different levels, and the kids are assigned a level based on where their are with thier language abilities. In DS's class the teachers will also encourage the older students to help explain things to the younger students who are struggling. This has the benefit of helping to reinforce the material for the older student, and the younger student gets it explained in a new way.

Most of the time in DS's class the kids don't really know who the Kindergartener's or 1st graders are, they just know which level they are in for centers.

I think it does require a lot more from the teachers, they have to come up with new fresh ideas each year, or else the kids will get bored since they have the same kids for 2 years.

 

[Russian-in-Kansas]

Our experience may not be relevant, but my kids attended a kindergarten in Germany, where the kids in the group were from age 3 to 7. They did wonderfully as the younger ones there. They did do activities that were for different ages, but most of the time the learning was as a result of playing and interacting with others. We loved it.

 

[emma'smom]

My dd5 is just finishing up kindergarten in a PreK/K classroom. She will begin in a Grades 1-3 classroom next year. We have loved the multiage classroom! When she was younger, she had the older kids to look up to and to set an example (for behavior and for higher level work). Now that she has been the older child, she has learned a lot of responsibility in helping the younger kids and has really developed her math/reading skills by assisting other children. Also, the multiage approach means that the students can work at multiple ability levels.

 

[DisneyFun08]

My daughter, who is now 20, was in a multi-age classroon for K-1st, her 2nd grade teacher "looped up" with the whole class for 3rd grade, and was in another multi-age class for 4th-5th. It was wonderful! A big plus is that her teachers knew when she went back in September after summer vacation exactly "where she was" academically and started from that point rather than spending the 1st few weeks of a new school year "grouping" everyone. One drawback, I would say, was that she didn't know very many kids other than the ones who were on her "track" in elementary school. It wasn't until middle school that she met alot of new friends, but part of that is because we have 3 elementary schools feeding into 1 middle school in our town.

Would I do it again? Definitely!

 

[Schmeck]

My older daughter was in a 1st-2nd grade class. When she was ion 1st grade it was great, as she was allowed to access the second grade curriculum when she finished her first grade work. But in second grade there wasn't enough for her to do, especially since she had done a lot of the work the year before.

We also found that a lot of the kids placed in this class were ones expected to have a hard time getting through the first grade curriculum as 1st graders. The second year in the same class was meant for them to repeat first grade to a point, then get into the second grade curriculum, and then be moved to another second grade class the next year. The teachers seemed to have their hands full with this population, and the kids ready to move on were ignored quite often. I volunteered in the class once a week, and spent a lot of time working with the kids that had finished the day's work. I don't know what these kids did after they did the 1st and 2nd grade work that day when I wasn't there!

We only had one combined class like this in our school system. And the awesome teachers who did this for so many years are both retiring this year, I think.

 

[ty&brenmom]

My oldest son was in a k-1 and then a 3-4 and he really benefited from it. I do believe that it may depend on your child and the teacher. At least in my sons school the children work more at their own pace, and work on projects alone. It worked out great for my son, who is advanced and got to keep up with the older kids and when he was the older kid he got to help with the younger ones. Also having the same teacher for two years is great, then you really get to know them and they get to know the kids also.
My younger son, needs constant reminders to stay on task and so a multiage classroom is not good for him. He would not get his work done if given assignments and instructed to work alone.

 

[emma'smom]

I just want to add that for my dd, I found she received just as much attention from the teachers as a "K" as she did as a Prek. I believe this was because:

(1) The "K's" were only 1/3 of the class---so when they were taught specifically "K" related content they the teacher/student ratio was much lower than a typical K classroom.

(2) The teachers were very conscious of the fact that they were moving on to the next classroom/plane of development (with a different teacher) in the 1-3 class and wanted to make sure they were prepared.

(3) The teacher has been doing this for years and has a three-year rotating curriculum in place which means that she didn't run into a lot of repeated curriculum as the content changed from year to year---and the skills were taught based on each child's developmental needs.

(4) I also think we just are lucky to have a really good teacher who would be highly successful in any kind of classroom....she is just a good teacher!