Daily Activities that Help Children Prepare for Kindergarten
Parents find themselves restless at the thought of sending their child to school even in kindergarten. Before the pre-school teachers takeover, you could prepare your little one to face the new challenges of growing up even at home. Here are some daily activities to incorporate in your routine to help prepare your child for Kindergarten.
Incorporate Reading and Writing in Daily Routine
At the start of the day, reinforce your child’s knowledge of the alphabet to prepare for the activities at school. You can use flash cards featuring the alphabet or point at the items around the house and pronounce each letter in the word. Prepare worksheets and activities to encourage your child to write letters, numbers, short words and their name. If you could, you can have them attend phonics classes for preschool. You can decorate their room with a letter board to give them a guide on how to write the letters. As the day winds down, you could continue to promote kindergarten readiness even as you prepare for bedtime. Read bedtime stories slowly pointing at each word to help your child read on their own. Encourage reading by asking your child to read one side while you read the other page of the book.
Schedule Art Sessions
Readiness for kindergarten also requires that your child could manipulate scissors, glue and paint with relative ease. To promote this skill, schedule regular art sessions as a break from the reading and writing activities set daily. Provide a safe and easy to clean environment where your child can do arts and crafts independently yet supervised. Print out painting pages and provide non-toxic watercolour and paints for one session and make mosaic images for another session. This will prepare your child for the many art and crafts activities in kindergarten.
Establish the Right Habits for School
It would help if you start preparing them to be a little more independent so that they can have more confidence to be on their own at school. Doing this could reduce kindergarten jitters for your little one. Start letting your child visit the potty unattended and teach them how to clean themselves after. If they still don’t eat independently, speak to your child about eating on her own. Begin practising getting dressed independently as well. This would make for less stressful mornings that allow for the most fun-filled experience at kindergarten.
Send your child off to kindergarten with confidence by incorporating these activities into your daily routine to ensure your child is ready for the all the challenges ahead.
