Preparing for Kindergarten

Kindergarten is an exciting and emotionally charged milestone for children and their family.

It’s a whole new ballpark from childcare and an even whole new world if your child has never been in a school setting ever.

Here are a few things you can do to ease everyone in and feel good about moving forward.

• If your child has never been away from you regularly, try to get them into a Summer program to get them used to more independence.
• Practice with meals you plan to pack your child so you know what they can and cannot open on their own. Also practice reminding them to focus on eating (unfortunately, they probably aren’t going to get a long lunch time)
• Do they know the basics? (Full alphabet, counting to at least 20, shapes, ability to listen to and follow through with directions, dressing and using the bathroom independently)
• Work on fine motor skills like tying shoes, using scissors, pencils, or glue sticks
• Read together. Do different forms of talking about the story, retelling, following along the words, talk about letters and their sounds. This will set them up for independent reading. But never stop reading together! That’s special time for a multitude of reasons