IN Brentwood-Baldwin-Whitehall Summer 2019 | Page 64

Preparing Your Child for Kindergarten
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 ransom box for toys left out like this one:
www.madsmemories.blogspot.com/2009/08/moms-ransom-
rubbage.html
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. Need some ideas? Go here: www.
icanteachmychild.com/alphabet
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.
• Talk about opposite words (big/little, empty/full, slow/fast)
Let’s face it: Kindergarten isn’t what it used to be. The
following list is intended to help prepare your child in a variety
of developmental 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!
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.
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• Stack blocks together.
• Let your child use child-safe scissors to cut out a variety of
shapes.
• Teach your child to write his name (capital for the first letter
and lowercase for the remaining letters). To start, write his
name using a highlighter and encourage him to trace over it.
Be sure that he forms the letters from the top to the bottom.
• Ensure your child is holding her pencil correctly:
www.icanteachmychild.com/2012/06/correct-pencil-grip/
• Play with playdough regularly. Roll, squish, stamp, and even
cut it!
• Encourage your child to cut out various shapes using child-
safe scissors.
• String large beads to make a necklace.
• Play with an interlocking puzzle together.
CREATIVE ARTS
• Always encourage pretend play…occasionally join your child
in his fantasy world.
• Teach your child to recognize the following colors: red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown, and
pink. For help, go to: www.icanteachmychild.com/colors
• Use a variety of materials to let your child paint, draw and
explore!
The year before kindergarten is also the time for parents and
teachers to think about a child’s strengths, talents, weaknesses,
and personality as well as how that information will be passed on
to the child’s new school. Social skills such as feeling comfortable
in a group, asking for help when it’s needed and knowing
personal information (such as name, age, gender) are important
skills for young children to develop as they get ready for school.
We are looking forward to meeting your Kindergartener.