The Basic Skills of Kindergarten

Children love to learn. In the first years of life, there really is no distinction between learning and play to a child and they get as much fun and joy from learning new things as they do from any game they play. So the years before kindergarten are a perfect time to use play time with you to begin their path toward conquering some basic principles that will be very helpful to them when they reach kindergarten.



Many children’s games and books focus on helping your little one learn colors, shapes and other basics that will be good to have a firm grasp of before they reach kindergarten. You can make a game of knowing the color names and you will be surprised how quick witted your child is and able to pick up not just the basic 5-10 colors but many nuances of color as well. The same is true of shapes. While a child may have trouble saying “octagon”, don’t underestimate their ability to learn the names of the various shapes of their toys and blocks.

You can use play and reading time to also help your preschool child get a good grasp of the alphabet, how the letters look and numbers and counting. These will all be excellent basic skills of kindergarten that will make the step into formal school easy and smooth for your child. In fact, it isn’t out line to expect that your preschooler could learn to sign her name and do some basic letter shaping exercises before she starts kindergarten. How great would it be for her not only to have these core skills and areas of knowledge well in hand before school starts but to be able to start with that much confidence that she is smart and ready for school? That kind of confidence translates into big time success for any student starting on a big new adventure.

Along with using play time in such a productive way, there are many studies that have shown without a doubt that reading to your child every day is one of the finest ways to get them ready for school. If you read stories to your little one and allow them to look over your shoulder, you will be surprised how many words they will learn to recognize just from that casual time of loving relaxation with mommy or daddy.



But reading is also one of the best ways to improve your child’s vocabulary and ability to speak clearly and expressively. Don’t be surprised if you find your child with books open early and often because you took the time to read to her even before she starts at kindergarten. And that love of learning is something that will stay with that child for the rest of her life. What a wonderful gift.

If your child loves to run and play as is very common in young children, you can use that to help them develop strong motor skills which will help in dozens of ways in school. Hand eye coordination not only will help your child do well in gym and playing sports, it will help in learning to write and many other related physical dexterity challenges that she will face in school.

By looking at many of life’s simple pleasures that you enjoy in raising a preschooler as also opportunities to develop your child intellectually, physically and even socially in preparation for kindergarten, you are giving your baby wonderful skills, knowledge and abilities that will pay off big when kindergarten starts officially when she is five. And you will be thrilled to see her naturally step into the formal school world so well and begin to succeed because you took the time to get her ready well ahead of time.

Making the Kindergarten Teacher a Friend and not an Enemy

One of the most natural reactions your child may have to meeting the kindergarten teacher on that first day at school is to be intimidated and afraid. The first day of school is a confusing and frightening experience sometimes if your little one has not been out in structured public situations before. The teacher will have a million things to think about and the top of the list will be to teach the children to learn the rules and the structure of school. And while there will be many days and weeks ahead for your child to get used to school, its possible it all could be very overwhelming and your baby may run home in tears that “the teacher hates me”.



Of course you know that the teacher wants only the best for your child. With time, the teacher will have time to spend with each child and that natural bond will occur. But if the first impression your baby boy or girl gets is that the teacher is their enemy and someone to fear, that bond may be slow in coming. And if the new student gets the feeling that school is a scary place where they are in danger, it could be the beginning of a lot of trouble with school down the road.

So teaching your child that the teacher is not an enemy is very important to her success on the first day of school and your child’s success in school for years to come as well. The first step in helping your child understand that the teacher is a friend is just to talk about it. Sitting with your child and visualizing together how that first day at school will be and seeing the teacher as a protector, a guide and a friend will send the child off to school with a good opinion of the teacher even before the class is called to order for the first time.

It might be helpful to work with your child to understand the relationship between authority and benevolence. You should work to help your child see that even though the teacher is setting the rules and enforcing discipline in the class, she is still the best friend and protector of the children as well. The best example your little one has of this model is, of course, mom and dad. A child has utmost trust and love for her parents. And yet she knows that it is also mom and dad who set and enforce the rules and even punish when the kids have been bad. By seeing that the role of rules maker and enforcer can be part of being a caregiver, the child can transfer the affection they have for mom and dad to the teacher and understand that role in class.



You can even take the next step in helping your child accept the role of teacher in her life by looking for a chance to go to the school and even sit in on a class just to watch what happens at school. Many schools are happy to let kindergartners that will be starting next year sit in for a day, especially if they are with mom or dad to help them feel secure. You will see some wide eyes as your child absorbs all that goes on in kindergarten. Then you can use that experience to answer a lot of questions when you get home. All of that is outstanding preparation for what the child will experience eon their first day in school.

By meeting the teacher, watching what happens in school and getting familiar with the “idea” of kindergarten, you are getting out ahead of the problem of fear and intimidation that is often big problem for children in their first day at school. The teacher your child will have in the fall will be thrilled to meet her and begin making friends with your child right away. And that short time together may be all it takes to change that teacher from an enemy to a trusted friend and a face your child will look for as soon as she goes to kindergarten that first week. And when your child sails through that first week at school, it will because you took the time to get her ready to have a great time in her first experience at school.

Making the First Day at Kindergarten a Big Event

Going off to kindergarten is a big deal to your child. For parents who already have kids, big transitions in the lives of the kids is often taken for granted. But to put in perspective in your life, an equivalent type of event in the life of you as an adult might be a relocation to another country for a new job. For your five year old, going to kindergarten is launching into a new world, a world she has never known before. It is going to a place to do things she doesn’t know how to do, to be under the authority of strangers which is totally new and to spend most of her day with people who are not her family.



When a child graduates from a phase in their lives like from high school, college or even from elementary school, it is not uncommon to celebrate with a big party and gifts. The purpose of the celebration is to commemorate the successful conclusion of a formal phase of life and start of the next phase. We want the child to come out of their completed experienced encouraged and excited so they charge into the next challenge with gusto.

It might be time to consider the start of kindergarten in that same category. In a way, starting school is the end of infancy. Your child is going off to do something all by herself. She will take on challenges and conquer them. She will have days when it seems it is impossible and then she will conquer those fears and achieve the impossible. So you want to send your little one off to kindergarten with that that its time to leave infancy behind and go into this big new world of school with gusto, enthusiasm and ambition.

Making the start of kindergarten a big event puts the feeling of joy and excitement around that first day in that new school. It is a “rite of passage” that puts momentum around your child’s growth from being a baby at home to becoming a student. In our eyes kindergarten is hardly a big challenge. But in your little one’s eyes, it is just as big a step as any other transition you have experienced. And that celebration gives her the momentum to overcome those initial fears and go into the kindergarten classroom with excitement and positive anticipation.



A party is always a good way to start out this new phase in life. Perhaps going to your child’s favorite restaurant would be a nice touch because she can invite some of her friends to be there with her whole family to cheer and celebrate this big day with her. While many children’s restaurants are used to singing to a child having a birthday, with some notification and letting the restaurant know what you want, you can have the staff come out and sing a happy song with a cake and ice cream to make this event memorable and fun for your soon to be star student of the family.

You want this celebration to be special and not like every other birthday. Presents might include extra fun school clothes, a new notebook, a fun backpack or a jumbo crayola set in a special carrier that she can use to take it back and forth to school. But by making this celebration full of laughter, song and joy, you are sending a message to your little one that everybody appreciates what a big deal starting kindergarten is and the whole family and all of her friends are behind her 100% of the way. And your support in launching that child into school so well will pay off when she comes home successful, happy and excited about what she is doing in kindergarten every day.

Making Kindergarten Safe

Sometimes we are not even aware how much we do to protect our kids when they are living at home. But when you are preparing your child to go out into the world on her own for the very first time, all of a sudden it can get very scary when you think of the many dangers out there. So one of the big jobs of preparing for your child to go to kindergarten is assure your child’s safety while she is at school.

It’s encouraging that, obviously, schools are designed to be safe places for your kids. The rooms are prepared to have young children in them and the way the children’s days are organized, there really is no time when they are not under the watchful eye of a caregiver. Schools are also more and more doing aggressive background checks on the people who work at the school to make sure there is no chance someone untrustworthy would have access to your child.



The trip to and from school is one that is often a big concern. The ideal would be if you could drive your child door to door. If your child must walk to school, take some time before the kindergarten year begins to meet parents of other kindergarten age children in your neighborhood. If your kiddo can tag along with a parent supervised group that is walking to school, that parent’s presence is often enough to make sure your child is safe.

But there is no question that safety begins with the child herself and the best way to prepare your child to be safe is to teach her to think about every aspect of safety throughout her day at school. The simple rules that were part of life at home must become hard and fast law at school. Your child should know never to pick up anything and put it in her mouth and to only eat things that she either brought with her to school or that she buys from the school cafeteria or are given to the class by the teacher.

You have to be diplomatic in teaching your child that accepting something to eat from another child is not ok. From your perspective, you have no idea whether what that other child is offering is safe, well prepared or might contain illegal substances. Yes, this is a bit paranoid but being safe is far better than being sorry later. So the rule of “no trading” when it comes to lunch items must be reinforced well so it is high on your child’s set of guidelines for her day.



Now you don’t want to scare your child or give her the idea that every adult is an abductor and every other child a drug dealer. It is ok for your little one to trust the adults at school and the other kids too but at the same time observe basic safety precautions even with trusted kids and adults so she is never even in a situation that could become dangerous.

Making it a rule to never be alone with another person anywhere is one way to make sure your child is always being looked after. This assures that she is never alone with an adult, including the teacher so if by chance someone improper got through the system, there is no access for that person to talk to or touch your child. But by stipulating that your little one makes sure she is never alone even with another child, the kids have fewer chances to think of activities that are not allowed and outside the range of acceptable and safe activities.

It is also a hard and fast rule that your child must never go home with another child or accept a ride from anyone without notifying mom first. Even if the child is your little one’s good friend, the two children must not be allowed to “be creative” about their route home or what will happen after school. By making sure your kindergartner knows the rules of safety well and observes them religiously, you are doing all you can to make sure that when you send that precious child off to school, you are continuing to protect her even when you cannot be around her all the time.

The Purpose of Kindergarten

It’s pretty common when you are starting to prepare your preschool child for that first day of kindergarten for her to ask you, probably with tears in her eyes, “But Daddy, why do I have to go?” And while you have your parent answers to give her and you will obviously refocus her attention on how fun it will be and how it will be her next step toward “being a big girl”, you might ask yourself that question as well. It’s important that dad and mom have a firm idea of what kindergarten is all about as well so you can do a good job of preparing your little one for this big step in life.



It is a mistake to see kindergarten as a huge academic leap into the future. When parents pour so much energy into preparing their children to excel academically before heading off to kindergarten, they miss the point of this important year of school. Moreover, by “prepping” the child for school as though this first year was going to be their freshman year at MIT, you create even more stress and anxiety because the child begins to think they are going to walk into a situation of high stress. The result is the child goes off to kindergarten already stressed and far more anxious than is justified for this first step out of the home.

Now this does not mean that preschool is not a good idea. Not only does preschool give the child an early love of learning, it is also an excellent way to help your child begin to acclimate to the idea of going to school out of the home. And learning to go somewhere else and become part of an organized curriculum is a big purpose of kindergarten. So preschool gently starts that transition both academically and emotionally.

To a very large extent, the purpose of kindergarten is to help young children begin that transition to a structured environment of school. If by the end of this important first year, kindergarten children come to school happily, know how to work with a schedule, sit at desks, listen to speakers, write things down and take them home and then bring them back again the next day and walk through the structured schedule of a normal school day, that is a huge step forward in preparing your child for school life that will begin in first grade.

Yes there is a curriculum in kindergarten and simple lessons are taught. Very often grades are not even kept or a child is given a good or passing grade just for being in class, participating in the group activity and trying to work with the program. The learning objectives that any kindergarten teacher will have for this year of life with these first year students is heavily slanted toward behavioral and social goals and not as heavy on academics.



The kindergarten teacher is a much different kind of teacher than any others your child will meet in his or her academic career. You will find your child’s kindergarten teacher to be very interested in each child as an individual and in helping your child make that transition away from living at home every hour of the day and toward using a significant part of their day at school. Commonly kindergarten teachers have special training in child psychology and are as much counselors and guides as they are teachers of lessons from books.

Get to know the teacher of your child’s kindergarten class. You will find she is eager to know all she can about your child to achieve her goal of preparing each kindergartner for the more academic years ahead. And if you are in sync with those goals, you can reinforce the experience your child is having with encouragement and interest at home. And working as a team, you and the teacher will help your child have a wonderful and successful first year in school.