Preparing Children for Kindergarten
Allow your child to do things independently even if he/she takes longer than you would to do it yourself.
Provide plenty of social experiences for your child. Whether in a formal or informal playgroup, preschool, or other setting, your child will learn skills that con only be taught by interacting with other children. Sharing objects or time with an adult is different from doing so with another child. Children develop their imaginations by role-playing and pretending. Pretend play has been consistently linked to cognitive, intellectual, language, and social growth.
Provide daily opportunities to develop strength and coordination of large and small muscles. Go to the park, play ball games and tag, practice lacing, put, stir, and participate in other functional activities.
Play games in which your child counts out loud (such as hide and seek), play board games that require your child to count the dots on a die, and use household it3ems such as cans, boxes, and balls to explore shapes. Complete puzzles and play with interlocking building toys.
Provide plenty of opportunities and materials for writing and creative expression: crayons, sand, water, paint, paper, markers, scissors, hole punch, yarn, beans, and Popsicle sticks.
Read picture books, poetry books, nonfiction books, nonsense books, nursery rhymes, and signs. Exposure to a wide variety of literature allows your child to learn different sentence patterns and hear vocabulary that you might not ordinarily use at home.
Talk with your child. Listen to your child’s stories. Tell your child stories. Ask questions. Share your ideas using descriptive language. Children learn language when they hear it and use it.
Visit your local library or bookmobile regularly.