Mekhi Rutherford plays with his family in their home Aug. 18 in Markham, Ontario. Mekhi will be attending the full-day senior kindergarten class at Ellen Fairclough Public School this year.Anne-Marie Jackson/ The Globe and Mail
What is The Kindergarten Diaries?
The Globe and Mail spent the last year inside three Toronto-area schools following the progress of four kindergarteners, each representative of different needs and backgrounds.
Over the course of the year we visited their classrooms and performed a battery of tasks, including puppet interviews, drawing exercises and photographs, that allowed us to map their progress.
Here is how the series broke down:
SEPTEMBER
We met with the children, their families and their teachers and established a starting point for the year ahead.
DECEMBER
Our first visit to the classrooms since we met the children, produced these video reports.
MARCH
In March we brought the children to the Globe and Mail's offices where we set out one-time-only tasks.
JUNE
In June we brought the families together to discuss each child's progress and reflect on lessons learned.
You can follow Kate Hammer's reporting and the research done by her partner in the series, graduate student Kadria Simons at www.globeandmail.com/kindergarten
DISCUSSION
Kate Hammer and Kadria Simons will participate in a live discussion Tuesday, June 14th at 1 p.m. ET