Last month we hosted a zoom call with local moms Rachel Gerber and Dr. Emily Byne, educators who work for AdmitNY. The topic of the presentation was Kindergarten Readiness – how best to prepare your child, and yourself, academically, socially and emotionally. One important take-away is that every child will be entering Kindergarten with different skills, and there are no academic requirements to begin the year. However, there are activities you can work on with your child so they are comfortable with the transition and confident with the demands of a new school and schedule.
Here is what we learned:
Academic Readiness-
- Schedule over the summer: 2-3 activities a week, 30 minutes max
- Keep it FUN:
- Using sidewalk chalk to fill in missing letters of the alphabet
- Counting people in a restaurant, counting basketball hoops on a drive
- Drawing letters in the sand
- Rainbow writing words- have your child use a different color for each letter
- Print out or make games- uppercase/lowercase letter matching, rhyming
- Read to your child – ask predicting questions, retelling, rhyming fill in the blanks, using pictures to understand the story. Check out Julia Donaldson books!
- Use math manipulatives to help count and sort- small bears, pasta, cotton balls
- Strengthen fine motor skills with use of play doh, cutting, beading
Social / Emotional Readiness-
- Practice independence with your child: do they know their full name, street address, parents’ names, teachers’ names, bus number
- Able to unzip his/her backpack, zip his/her pants and put on/take off shoes
- Over the summer involve them in any activities with new classmates, camps, touring the school, use the school playground
- The week before school practice getting up on time, do the route you would take to school
- When school begins – let them melt down at home after a full day of “ being good”, try to let them come to you to talk about their day, remember that regressions may occur and this is natural
If you have any further questions or are interested in purchasing a package of over 60 worksheets and activities for your PreK student, reach out to Rachel Gerber at [email protected]