What practice teachers really want your child to know on the offset 24-hour interval of kindergarten? Kindergarten is changing and parents are feeling pressure level to set up their children for their showtime school experience. But while some may fret that reading and doing addition are prerequisites for kindergarten these days, your kid likely possesses many of the skills she needs to exist successful as she begins school.

"Some of the things I would like my kids to know coming into kindergarten are their letters and some sounds, recognition of numbers 1-10, exist able to write and recognize their name and be able to cut with pair of scissors," says kindergarten instructor Nicole Barton. "It is besides important for them to exist able to follow directions and to have the ability to express their feelings."

Here are the x kindergarten readiness skills to focus on as you work with your child. Don't be concerned if she does not have them all downward before the kickoff twenty-four hour period of kindergarten, equally she will continue to piece of work on them throughout the year. Endeavour a few activities listed for the skills your child might need to work on a bit more before she starts school.

1. Writing

  • Help your child practice writing letters, peculiarly the letters in her proper noun.
  • Teach your child how to write her name with an uppercase get-go letter and the remaining letters in lowercase.
  • Write in shaving cream in the bathtub, common salt or sugar in a cake pan or in finger paint to make practicing more fun and multisensory.

2. Letter Recognition

  • Play games to assistance your child recognize some messages of the alphabet.
  • Play hide and seek with refrigerator magnets.
  • Rather than drilling your child with flashcards, use them to play a game of alphabet get fish.

three. Beginning Sounds

  • Make your child aware of the sound that each letter of the alphabet makes.
  • Find items effectually the business firm that brainstorm with the same sound and identify the letter that makes each sound.
  • Overemphasize the outset sound in words to assist your child hear the individual sounds in words.

four. Number Recognition and Counting

  • Count throughout the mean solar day (for example, the crackers she is eating for snack or the socks in that you take out of the dryer).
  • Betoken out numbers you encounter in your environment and have your child name them (for example, the numbers found on food boxes or street signs).

five. Shapes and Colors

  • If your child is having trouble recognizing certain colors, you might add a footling food coloring to cookie dough, milk or vanilla pudding to emphasize those colors.
  • Help your kid recognize more than hard shapes such as diamonds and rectangles by showing her how to describe them on paper and cut them out.
  • Play games in which your kid finds objects of particular colors and shapes effectually the business firm or in the neighborhood as you bulldoze.

half-dozen. Fine Motor Skills

  • Give your child several unlike writing options (colored pencils, crayons or markers) to help keep her interested in writing and drawing.
  • Playing with play dough is a fun way to strengthen the muscles of the hand that volition be used for writing.

7. Cutting

  • Purchase a skilful pair of child-safe scissors and permit your child practise.
  • Give her old magazines or newspapers to cut up, or permit her to make a collage of the things she likes past cutting them from magazines and gluing them to a slice of paper.
  • Cutting play dough is besides fun for children.

8. Reading Readiness

  • Run your finger nether the words as you read to your child to help her learn that words go from left to right and top to lesser.
  • Play games with rhyming words to help your kid hear similar sounds in words. For example, as yous are going up the stairs, name one word that rhymes with cat for each pace as you get upwards.

nine. Attending and Following Directions

  • Read lots of stories with your child and piece of work up to reading longer affiliate books, one chapter each night or equally long as she remains interested and focused.
  • Requite your kid two and three footstep directions. For example: "put on your pajamas, brush your teeth and option a book to read."
  • Play Simon Says with 2 or 3 step directions. For example: "Simon Says spring upwardly and down and shout hooray."

x. Social Skills

  • Give your children opportunities to interact with other children in preschool, church or social groups or play dates.
  • Teach your child how to express her feelings if she doesn't like something.
  • Role-play dissimilar situations she might experience on the playground or at school. Assist her find solutions for typical bug she might encounter.

Chances are yous're already practicing many of these skills your child will need for kindergarten. Recollect to go along it fun and don't brand information technology stressful for you or your child. With just a little fun practice, your kid will exist prepared for her elementary school debut!

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