Maybe Kindergarten is for socialization.

A friend of mine's nephew and his wife just named their son "Ebenezer".

Is that a name making a comeback?

Well, 35 years ago, a lot of 5 year olds had never been to any kind of school at all. K was half-day, and really focused on getting kids used to the routines of school and interacting with their peers and sitting still, with the academic content of stuff like letters and numbers and the alphabet. (Edited to note, for those who were worrying, that I do realize that letters = the alphabet.)

Now, it really varies by the school and the affluence of the neighborhood. K at our Title 1 (high-poverty) school in Georgia, there were still a lot of kids who had never been to school before, although K is full day there (which is very common now). Academic content was numbers to 100, letters and their sounds, reading was not expected yet. At the affluent public school where Dillo attended K, the kids were expected to be reading (or close to it) and adding and subtracting numbers up to 10 by about March. In a lot of suburban schools, people say the current K curriculum is basically what the 1st grade curriculum was 30+ years ago. And the argument is that many 5 year olds are simply not developmentally ready for that content.

In NYC public schools, kids have to read at a level F in order to "fly" to 1st grade. Dylan's current school (which is a Title 1 school) also pushes very hard on writing, and they do basic math - numbers up to 100, counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, reading clocks and counting money, addition and subtraction.

I was also half day and we had nap time. They also taught us colors (I failed the test because I called grey silver). We never had any homework until second grade. There was also a lot of emphasis on how to wait in line properly

My nephew just finished preschool and will be in Kindergarten next year. He's going to a private Montessori and something else based school. The Pre K and Kindergarten classes are together (they are the Owls and KinderOwls) and pre K is half day where as Kindergarten is full day.

I know he has a Grace and Courtesy class and also music, storytime, he's been learning his letters and numbers and the basic ideas of addition.

I don't know what the curriculum is for Kindergarten but I'd assume math, reading, spelling. I do know if a kid is good at one subject s/he can go up to the 1st grade class for that subject. Only it's not called 1st grade, they have another woodland animal designation.

I don't remember much about 1st grade, but I think I could read better before I went to school than I could after 1st grade. Anything with words was fair game, but in school we got Dick and Jane and Spot. Heck, in 1st grade I got tapped to read a book for the 3rd graders.

I envy people who remember being really young.

I was also half day and we had nap time.

Things I would like in my current work situation for $300, Alex.

As I remember, pre-school was for the kids whose mothers worked and kindergarten was for the kids who needed help academically, generally called Head Start. All other kids went straight to 1st grade. This was in the late '60s (so damned long ago now).

The last time I looked at the research, the academic advantages of holding back disappear by third grade, and overall it's better to put your kid in a more stimulating environment earlier.

That's the research I've seen. Sandra Aanodt and Sam Wang wrote an article for the NYT on the subject. (Sam Wang is a neuroscientist at Princeton who also produces the election metapolling blog, Princeton Election Consortium.) Conversely, Biyi and I went to a talk by an expert in early childhood development, who was of the opinion that there were no harmful effects from redshirting. I'm somewhat sceptical since she claimed there was no research to the contrary, and courtesy of the Aanodt/Wang article, I'm aware of a number of pieces of such research. Nonetheless, Biyi and I are agreed that Ryan needs to be ready in terms of maturity and social development.

I skipped kindergarten and went straight into first grade, as I was already reading well above that level and doing better than that with numbers. I was generally the youngest in my class thereafter. It certainly didn't hurt me academically, indeed I suspect I'd have been quite bored otherwise. It still didn't challenge me enough to develop good study habits, and there were times when I was behind my peers in maturity. On the other hand, my youngest brother got held back a year in primary school, and his PhD suggests it didn't do him much damage.

In Ryan's case, he'll be ready academically, and his kinder is assuring me that he's ready socially. We still have a question mark over how he handles frustrations and opposition, but his teachers tell me he does better with the other children than with us (which makes sense to me). He's become pretty adept with saying "Stop that, I don't like it!" Just recently he's become a lot more discerning about who he spends time with too. He now avoids the rougher kids and plays more with the quieter kids (which coincidentally includes the two kids who will also go to his school, so that's nice).

Anyway, we'll see what the field officer says before making the final call.

So, did you know that if you pour liquid nitrogen into a pool, the liquid nitrogen will boil in the water, leaving lots of nitrogen gas that displaces oxygen near the pool and leaves no oxygen to breathe for those in the pool?

Watch as this liquid nitrogen pool party goes horribly wrong

A recent Jägermeister pool party in Mexico turned to panic after organizers poured four buckets of liquid nitrogen into the water, sending eight to hospital and leaving one partygoer in a coma. As you'll see in this video, things got ugly pretty quick.

eta:

I didn't know this before. But in recent years I've seen enough science videos on the internets to pick up this info.