Preparing Your Child for Kindergarten

The following list is intended to help prepare your child in a variety of

Develop mental areas to make the transition into kindergarten as smooth as possible. 

Believe it or not, just 15-20 minutes of playing and learning with your child can make a

World  of difference!    

Social/Emotional Development

Encourage your child to persist in tasks when encountering a problem by giving

him tasks slightly above his current ability level.  When your child cannot find a

solution on his own, encourage him to calmly ask for help.

 Play board games to practice taking turns.

Set up several play dates with friends of various ages.

 Allow your child to stay with other trusted adults for a few hours at a time prior to

kindergarten (especially if she has rarely been in the care of someone other than

mom and dad).

 Tell your child you expect her to clean up after play.  You could implement a

box for toys left out   

Language Development

Verbally give your child specific one-step and two-step directions and encourage

him to follow through.

 Read to your child for a combined total of at least 20 minutes each day.

 While reading, point out how to hold a book (right-side up with the spine on the

left) and the orientation in which we read the words and look at the pictures (left

to right).

 After reading, ask your child what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of

the story. 

 Give your child plenty of opportunities to draw (without coloring books).  Ask her

to draw the things she sees around her.

 Teach your child the uppercase and lowercase letters and, most importantly, the

sounds each letter makes through play and games.

Cognitive Development

 Have your child help you sort items according to color, size, and shape (laundry,

blocks, silverware, toys, and other household items work well).

 Teach your child to make various patterns (red, blue, red, blue).  Garage sale dot

stickers or craft pom-poms are great for this purpose.

 Practice counting aloud to 20 while driving in the car.

Count objects in your home.  Have your child point to each object as she counts.

 Go on a shape hunt.  Point out circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles to your

child while you are taking or walk or grocery shopping.

Talk about positional and directional concepts like up/down, over/under, in/out,

behind/in front of, top/bottom, beside/between, off/on, stop/go.

Talk about opposite words (big/little, empty/full, slow/fast).

Physical Development (Gross & Fine Motor)

Give your child plenty of opportunities for outdoor play: running, jumping, and

climbing.

Play catch on a regular basis.

Practice skipping.

Stack blocks together.

 Let your child use child-safe scissors to cut out a variety of shapes.

I think if you practice all this thing with your child he will success at the school

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