My dd will be 5 on October 10 and therefore misses the cutoff (which is October 1 here) for kindergarten by 9 days. She has completed preschool and pre-K. A few preschools here offer a Junior Kindergarten program which seems to be for kids who miss the cutoff by a month or two or for children who are eligible for kindergarten but the parents do not feel the child is ready to attend. I am just wondering if anyone has had any experience with a jr. k. program?

I've never heard of Jr Kindergarten. I would check it out soon as most of these programs fill up starting in February.

In our area, the children can test into Kindergarten if they are born before Oct 31st. My youngest dd will miss this cutoff by 6 days. Therefore, I will be sending her to preschool for another year. Our preschool is available from 2-6 years old.

Isn't it funny that it's called different things in different parts of the country.

Here what you are referring to is calling preK. My youngest will start that in August (yes she did preschool but her birthday is Nov. so she can't start kindergarten).

I know other mothers who have put their child in this program and said it was great.

Around here it's called "PreK"...we didn't use it however, both my kids were ready for K and went when they were 5.

here it is also calle pre-k.. my oldest went straight to kindergarten next son starts preschool this fall and can go to transitional kindy(wich is for those not socially ready they have to be 5 to attend just like kindy) or to kindy.. now my youngest dd will have to attend a pre-k when she gets that age since she will miss the cutoff by 15 days.

Here Jr. kindergarten is for 4 year olds, and kindergarten is for 5 year olds. You don't have to attend JK, but most kids do anyways. K and JK are all mixed together. They learn the same things as the kindergartners, and have time to learn how to socialize with other kids and learn their ABCs and stuff.

We also don't have a cut off age. It's just if you are born in one year you are in the same grade, no matter if you were born in January or December.

Here preschool is just another term for daycare where they do learning activities.

So here we have preschool which is for 3's, pre-k which is for 4's and jr. k. which is for 4's that miss the cutoff but are 5 by December 1.

our cut offf day here is 0ct.1 and my daughters birthday is Sept.30!: we only have pre-k which i guess is like yours. some parents will send their children to our catholic school for k if they miss the cut-off