Brand new experience awaits kindergartners, families during COVID-19

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - The first day of kindergarten is a major milestone for children, going to big kid school for the first time. But this year, it’s not your normal kindergarten experience.

"If we've set an expectation for these kids of what it's going to be like, and it's going to be exciting, and then to have that letdown that it's not happening," counselor Erin Wiley said, "and then to read from all the people around you emotionally that they're mad or sad or upset or confused and angry, for me that's going to be the biggest things for these kids to navigate.

Wiley said families often build up kindergarten, so with schools going with hybrid plans or fully remote, this year might be disappointing for the youngest students.

"So the biggest thing I think for these kids is going to be the disappointment of it being different," Wiley said. "But we have a choice of whether we keep communicating with our kids that this is a huge disappointment or we say, It's something new, and we can find good things in something new and we can handle hard feelings."

The pandemic has spawned new resources for families getting ready for big kid school.

The Toledo Library's Countdown to Kindergarten program has gone virtual this year to help families get prepared for whatever the fall semester brings.

"We wanted to still offer some of those tidbits of information in a video series that families can view on our webpage," TLCPL early literacy ready-to-read librarian Cristin Brown said.

You can find more information about that program at this link.

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