The earlier posts in this series outlined an overview of the current state of Kindergarten and shared skills and tasks beginning of the year Kindergartners should have under their belt. In this post, I’ll be sharing some ways to help your child get those said skills under those proverbial belts!
Here’s the overarching idea to remember: young children are like sponges. They just soak everything up! So while this means that yes, young children can learn their letters and numbers from flashcards, it also means that they don’t have to! As I mentioned in my last post, I truly believe that most of the skills that we desire to see in beginning Kindergartners can be learned from your child interacting with you and with the world around him, starting from infancy and leading all the way up to that first day of Kindergarten. Here’s what that might look like:
- READ: Surprise, surprise! That’s the first thing on the list!
Read to your child every. single. day. Read a variety of genres and for a variety of purposes. Read books that are of interest to your child and help him also expand his tastes and horizons as a reader by introducing him to new titles and to some of your favorites.
- Along the lines of reading, introduce new concepts through books. Lil’ CB first started learning his letters by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (again and again and again) so we began reading lots of other alphabet books, too. Pretty soon, Lil’ CB could recognize all the letters of the alphabet from reading lots of ABC books and pointing out letters in different places. We are now working on this with numbers and counting books, too. The great thing is that there are ABC and Number and Color books focusing on just about any theme — from pirate ABC books to counting turkey books to books about different colored trucks — you can find just about anything!
- Sing songs! There are so many fun children songs that feature rhyming and alliteration in a silly way. Song’s like Raffi’s Down by the Bay or Willoughby Wallaby Woo introduce children to rhymes and alliteration without them even realizing it at first. After they get the hang of the song, you can talk to them about the ideas of rhyming and alliteration, using the songs as frames of reference. Then play a game, thinking of as many rhyming words or words that start with a particular sound.
- Have various child-friendly writing tools available for your child to use — crayons, washable markers, colored pencils, etc. All children essentially progress through the same developmental stages of drawing and the more exposure a child has to drawing, the more likely he is to meet these milestone stages at the typical age.
- Read and write with your child for real-world purposes — make lists together, read signs, write letters and cards, look up answers, etc — the possibilities are endless!
- Practice fine motor skills in fun ways — paint in the bathtub, write with sidewalk chalk, play with playdoh or silly putty, work on lacing and buttoning.
- If your child is able to write letters, help him start at the top and pull down to make straight letters, and start at the top and go counterclockwise for curved letters. Give him a verbal path to follow for the letters he writes. A word of caution, though…developmentally speaking, most children will not have the fine motor development needed to write letters properly until about 4.5 -5. So, until then, practicing straight lines and curves and circles is also great!
- In short, do what you can to cultivate your little reader and writer! Check out our previous series all about this here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
- COUNT. A lot! Count stairs, count steps, count pieces of food, count toys, count seconds, count family members… just count, count, count! And when possible, demonstrate 1:1 correspondence when counting — if you are counting toys, for example, touch each toy or move it to the side as you say the corresponding number.
- SORT. Sort with your child — sort laundry by type: dark and light, mine and yours; sort silverware as you put it away; sort toys — trains in this bin, tracks in that bin. Have your child explore sorting on her own, too — give her a box of buttons (if she is old enough to keep them out of her mouth!) and watch what she does; do the same with coins or blocks. Ask her to put the ones that are similar together and have her explain what’s the same (they’re all red; they’re all round).
- Play “I Spy” using shapes and colors to describe the mystery objects.
- If your child is not yet talking, describe things your child brings you or shows you using descriptive and comparative words. Or, if your child is talking, ask for clarification using descriptive and comparative words.
- Just as with literacy skills, make Math skills practice as genuine and authentic as possible. Talk about and point out numbers at the store as you compare prices. Point out numbers you are looking for as you drive. Cook with your child and have him help you count out the number of cups, etc. Set the table together and count out the number of dishes, napkins, and cutlery you need. Show her that Math is all around us!
- Build routines and as your child becomes more verbal; have her tell you what comes next in the routine.
- Encourage following two-step directions within a logical sequence — “Put your clothes in the hamper and then get into the bathtub.” or “Put your napkin in the trash and then put your dish in the sink.”
- As much as possible, try to have your child regularly interact with similar aged peers. As you see fit, step back and let your child negotiate interactions with peers on his own. Teach him stock phrases to help him engage with other children — “Hi, my name is ____. Do you want to play?”
- Help your child talk about her feelings — give her words to name what it is she might be feeling. As she grows older, help her use those feelings words with her peers, too: “I want to play and it makes me sad when you won’t let me.”
- Prepare your child for transitions by giving him forewarning — “In 2 minutes we’re going to get ready to go. You’re going to start cleaning up then.” Give another reminder at 1 minute. Count down the last 10 seconds together.
- Play games together to practice taking turns (also a great way to help your child become a graceful loser — we are working hard on this!
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- In short, and this really applies to building skills overall, talk with your child about anything and everything. Narrate your time together; talk about things you notice and wonder about; answer those gazillion WHY? questions as best as you can; retell shared events; tell stories from your childhood or from earlier in your child’s life… just talk! It is amazing how much just talking with your child can do to build your child’s skills! Talking with your child builds oral language skills and vocabulary, helps them practice conversational turn-taking, validates feelings and questions, and puts into practice many, many basic concepts.
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
We need to do printouts of these lists of yours!! I want to print them out and hang them on the fridge with a big highlighter to mark off when we’ve done them! I love you! I mean… your posts! I mean… you!!!!
grapefruit / 4669 posts
Thanks for breaking it down and making teaching these things easy to manage! This will come in handy in a few years.
GOLD / wonderful coffee bean / 18478 posts
Another wonderful post – thank you!!
honeydew / 7488 posts
I love it! I especially love that all of the things you listed that we can be doing to prepare for Kinder are pretty much things that any normal, caring parent would naturally do with their child, or things that any decent child care provider would be doing. You have really alleviated many of my concerns, so thank you!
One more question I have for you is around the Gifted and Talented programs that many schools have. Is there any real benefit to kids being admitted at the Kindergarten age (i.e. is this something I need to have on my radar and be concerned about)? I have had some parents suggest that I put together a “portfolio” of my childs “work” to present to a teacher for consideration. I was shocked! I live in a nice suburb, but it is by no means a super competitive area. But these moms say it is better to get them in “early” when there is less competition?
pomelo / 5178 posts
Great post! Thank you so much for this series!
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@T-Mom: i’m glad this helped alleviate your concerns! yay!
as far as GT in kindergarten, here’s how i really feel about the subject: it’s crazypants!!
in my honest opinion, i feel that kindergarten is waaaaay too early to “label” a child as gifted. yes, there are certainly children that stand out as possibly being gifted when they are 5, but for the most part, so many of the things that children learn leading up to and in kindergarten are developmental skills. and at that point, there is a big difference even 6 months can make, so to compare a january birthday kindergartner with a july birthday kindergartner in terms of their skills (especially fine motor and some finer social skills) would just be unfair.
i know that might sound contradictory to what i said in my post about most entering kindergartners being able to have control over the listed skills, but really, even if a child excelled in all of those skills, i would have a hard time labeling him as gifted. along the same lines, if a child entered kindergarten and was lacking in many of those skills, i wouldn’t begin screening him for special needs. does that make sense?
what we typically see is a wide range of skills and abilities in kindergarten through second grade. then, by third grade, the range becomes smaller as things begin to even out for students. for example, a child might be an early reader and begin reading in kindergarten, but spend much of first grade and second grade widening his breadth of skills and understanding (because he needs it) at higher level books, while another child might move steadily through levels, resulting in both children reading at the same level in third grade.
our school district begins its gifted program in third grade for those reasons and in kindergarten-second grade, all children receive lessons from the gifted & talented program teacher to expose them to 21st century thinking skills. by the time children are accepted to the program at the end of second grade, we find that it doesn’t always match up with the students that were “highest” in their class in kindergarten.
so, in short, i wouldn’t worry about having your child admitted to the gifted program in kindergarten…he’ll shine brightly on his own without a portfolio and until he begins in the program, he will benefit from good teaching with peers of all abilities!
pomegranate / 3890 posts
this is great! my lo is only four months but i am saving this and showing my hubby for when he is older! thanks so much for takking the time to write this,. it really helps the whole learning process seem less foreign and scary! it actaully seems doable.
pomegranate / 3383 posts
I looooove these posts. I am totally considering moving to whichever school district you teach in so you can be my lo’s kindergarten teacher in a few years!
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@Mrs.Cowgirl Thank you so much for starting this series. It’s super helpful and gives us crazy moms (lol) something concret to work on.
I do have a question about families that speak multiple languages in the household. What have you observed in your classrooms with children that comes from dual (or more) language families?
I’ve been trying to teach my son (2yr) both languages by repeating vocab in both (and hopefully adding another when he’s older). I know it’s a little different from back in the days when I actually enter grade shcool without knowing english!
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
I love these! And I agree… we need these as printouts! I’m so not joking!
honeydew / 7488 posts
@Mrs. Cowgirl: thanks for the input on GT!! Very helpful.
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@erte: i was raised in a bilingual home and i think it’s such a great asset to know more than one language!
my class is actually a part of a dual language program. i teach my students reading, writing, and social studies in english and they learn math and science in spanish from a different teacher in the afternoons. it’s an amazing program and i can’t wait for lil’ cb to be in it!
we are a minority majority school, and many, many of our students come to school speaking 2 languages or speaking one non-english language. children under the age of 8 pick up language suuuuper quickly, so even if they come to school speaking no english, they quickly learn and are at grade-level by about 2nd or 3rd grade. and once you know 2 languages, it’s easier to pick up a 3rd, too!
one piece of advice, though. my co-teacher (the one who teaches in spanish) is extremely well versed in language development and bilingual education. through her, i’ve learned that the best way to teach to languages is to fully immerse in those languages. don’t to translations for vocabulary, but just speak full sentences in each language (so, no spanglish or franglais!). your child will natural pick vocabulary in both languages without direct translations given.
one way to do it is to have you and your partner speak to your LO in separate languages. we started with me speaking to lil’ CB in korean only and mr. cowboy speaking to lil’ CB in english only. it ended up being too difficult for us to keep up with, but we now ask grandparents to only speak to lil’ CB in korean. a young child can learn to compartmentalize language learning and pick it up even if it’s only one person they’re speaking that language to.
i hope that helps!
grapefruit / 4049 posts
wonderful post! this makes me feel really good about DD going to kinder next year. it’s really amazing what they learn the first 5 years of life!
your students and their families are so lucky to have you as a teacher!
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@mrs. wagon: @tororojo: @Andrea: @stargal: @Honeybee: @Mrs. Paintbrush: awww, thanks! I’m so glad you’ve found these posts helpful!
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
@Sammyfab: @NYCaliMama: you guys! You made me tear up
thank you…
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@mrs.cowgirl
Thank you so much for the info. And like the rest…I wish my son could have someone as wonderful as you for a teacher when he starts school!
clementine / 828 posts
I love your posts! It’s obvious from your posts that you are a wonderful teacher. It’s clear that you love your job and really care about your students. I wish all teachers were like you.
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@ Mrs CB…thank you, thank you for providing this!!! I couldn’t have said it any better myself. We send home a letter with many of these tips to pre-k parents the spring before kindergarten. Also, YES-the whole business of labeling a child GT any time before about 3rd grade is waaaay too early….I hated that my district tested kids in K!
I’m guessing you’ve read this, but wanted to post it here as my GT magnet school had a lot of discussion about it a few years ago. I’ll now get off my GT soap box!
http://nymag.com/news/features/63427/
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
I came back to read these posts now that Jacobi is 20 months and I feel I can start with more of these activities! I really hope to foster a love of learning, and it’s funny how I have found myself counting, pointing out shapes, colors, adjectives etc just in daily play.
Do you have any type of toy recommendations to help foster these skills? He’s still young for sorting (I want to get him the color sorting pie), we do build with blocks a lot and I’ve been encouraging imaginary play a lot lately (involving his animals in our routines such as putting them to bed or playing with his toys).
Thanks for all the great tips. I’m going to print these out as well when I need inspiration for activities to do with him
blogger / kiwi / 675 posts
this is SO helpful as a SAHM… thankyou… printing!