Starting school is a big step for a child – and their parents! To ensure your child is ready for their first day at kindergarten, you’ll want to ensure you undertake some prep with them.

Milestones Checklist

A kindergarten checklist can be a useful way to make sure your child has the skills they’ll need to flourish at school. To help get your son or daughter ready for their big day, be sure to include these milestones on your kindergarten-ready checklist:

• Able to write his or her name
• Speaks in sentences
• Can hold pencils, crayons and pens appropriately
• Able to bounce a ball
• Can describe similarities and differences between objects
• Matches objects according to size or shape
• Recites familiar songs and nursery rhymes
• Has book awareness
• Follows directions with one or two steps
• Has a number of sight words
• Attempts to draw or write letters
• Able to arrange objects in size order
• Understands concepts of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’
• Recognizes colors and their names
• Shows interest in their surroundings
• Able to name some plants and animals

Social Readiness Checklist

As you can see, many kindergarten readiness skills are focused on basic mathematical, scientific and creative concepts, as well as on language, reading, writing and motor skills. However, social readiness is an important part of kindergarten prep too. Before your child meets their kindergarten teacher on the first day of school, help them prepare by focusing on the following social skills:

• Asking for help
• Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
• Following instructions
• Staying on task
• Demonstrating self-control
• Working with others
• Confidence when separated from parents or caregivers
• Participating in tidying up

Preparing your child for kindergarten

Many elements of kindergarten readiness coincide with your child’s natural development. However, all children develop at different rates, so there’s no need to panic if your child isn’t hitting every kindergarten readiness target.

Of course, it’s important to work with children to help them develop the skills they need. By undertaking a wide range of activities with your child, you can help them to learn the essential skills they will need as they begin their school career.

For most parents, however, it can be tricky to address every aspect of kindergarten readiness in a home environment. Due to this, attending preschool can be a great way to ensure your child is fully prepared for entering kindergarten.

Choosing the right preschool

When your child attends a preschool that implements a professional curriculum or by ordering preschool curriculum to home school them, you can be sure that they are developing the skills they will need in the future. As a professionally developed early learning program, Learning Box Preschool curriculum meets and exceeds the 2017 NAEYC requirements.

Ideal for children aged 3-5, Learning Box Preschool curriculum meets state alignments and guides pre-K curriculum development. Committed to maintaining exceptionally high standards and foundation principles, Learning Box Preschool provides quality early education curriculum.

By choosing the right preschool for your child, you can give them the positive start they deserve. As well as providing the educational skills they’ll need, attending preschool helps to ensure children are socially and emotionally ready to begin their kindergarten class.