STEPS: What Can I Do to Prepare My Child for Kindergarten?
In kindergarten, your child will develop skills in a variety of areas. However, kindergarten makes up only a small part of each day. The key to a successful school year is a strong partnership between home and school.
Review the following activities and congratulate yourself on how much you are already doing to prepare your child for kndergarten. Then select a few new activities you can introduce to your child. Place emphasis on trying a new activity rather than mastering the skill. Remember that children learn by playing. You can show your child that learning is fun as well as important!
Activities to Do with Your Child
Reading Readiness and Language
- Read to your child every day.
- Read by yourself to set a good example.
- Give your child many reading materials to explore and writing materials to use.
- Visit the library often, and participate in story times and other activities there.
- Read aloud signs like "No Parking" and "Exit," and talk about what the signs mean.
- Sing songs and say nursery rhymes together.
- Play with alphabet letters, and help your child to identify letter names and words that begin with the sound the letter makes.
- Use new and different words to describe what you see, hear, and feel. Do this to help your child develop language skills.
- Encourage your child to write notes using scribble writing and pretend spelling.
- Turn a show box into a mail box and use it to send notes to each other. Take turns reading what you have "written."
Health Education
- Make hand washing and tooth brushing a regular part of your family's routine.
- Use stickers on dangerous items in your home. Talk about what the sticker means.
Music
- Sing songs together. Try humming or clapping to the music as well.
- Make up songs with your child. Take turns singing verses.
Math Readiness
- Make a simple recipe together. Count and measure ingredients. Note how long it takes to complete your creation.
- Use a calendar to plan special events. Count the days until an event happens.
- Use a growth chart to measure height.
- Play simple math games with dice, cards, and dominoes.
- Practice saying your phone number and address together.
- Count forward and backward with your child. For example, "Three, two, one, let's go!"
- Find things to count with your child, such as...
- How many bites does it take to eat a banana?
- How many things at home are shaped like a circle? A square? A triangle?
- How many shoes or books are in your home?
- How many steps does it take to cross a room?
- How many steps does it take to climb up stairs?
- Add to the fun by stapling paper together and making a "How Many?" book to keep track of what you have counted.
Physical Fitness
- Practice fastening clothes and shoes with snaps, buttons, zippers, and laces.
- Visit parks, playgrounds, and swimming pools.
- Play games that encourage your child to move different body parts on command.
Visual Arts
- Experiment with Play Dough, crayons, paints, paper and scissors to develop small muscles in the fingers and eye-hand coordination.
- Pick a place to display "masterpieces" at home.
- Ask your child to tell you all about his or her artistic creations.
Social Studies
- Practice taking turns and listening respectfully with your child by playing "I Wonder." For example, start with "I wonder what it would be like to be a bird." Ask your child to answer. Then take your turn answering. If your child wants to say more, encourage him or her to wait until your turn is finished.
- Look at family photos together, and talk about what makes your family special.
- Practice problem solving together by asking "What would you do if..."
Science
- Play "Sink or Float" with your child by finding a number of small items. Predict which will sink and which will float. Try each one and write down what you learn.
- Collect items such as stones, leaves, buttons, or shells, and sort by color, shape, size or any other characteristic your child selects.
Developed by the Clark County Readiness Task Force