What should you know entering kindergarten

Start nailing numbers. The easiest intro is to incorporate math into everyday activities: Count steps as you walk, point out birds in the sky and count them together, or count beans or coins as you sort them. Practice making decisions. Any type of creative play involves constant decision-making, explains Guddemi. What should the princess be named?

How big should the castle be? Where should the moat go? When you walk to the park together, ask your child to lead the way, or to decide what to do with the caterpillar you find on the sidewalk. Kids learn best when parents model creativity and out-of-the-box thinking -- not in isolated activities but as part of your everyday life, says Guddemi.

Understand how books work. Experts agree that nothing fosters a love of lifelong learning like early and frequent exposure to the written word. By kindergarten, your child should know how to hold a book upright and turn the pages, as well as recognize the front, back and where the story starts. Point out the title and the author each time you read, and follow the words with your finger so she starts to make the connection.

It may take a while to click, Guddemi adds, but with repetition, it undoubtedly will. Work on some self-sufficiency skills. Even if your kid lives in Crocs or flip-flops, his self-esteem will skyrocket if he can tie a pair of shoe laces on his own, says Mascott.

Likewise, he should be able to zip up a jacket and button his pants after he uses the potty, for the sake of both confidence and convenience. Plus, the teachers will love you for raising a can-do kid. Master eating with utensils. Even if you insist on proper utensil use at mealtime, most kids will revert to their fingers if left to their own devices. Persistence eventually pays off, so talk about proper usage and reward mastery and consistency.

Get the lay of the land. To mitigate some of the misery, you can visit the school in advance, meet the teachers and take pictures featuring your child in the school setting. Hang one prominently in the kitchen and start a calendar count-down. Make sure that your child sees you reading your own books , too.

Read, read, read! Kindergartners need to be able to put on their own coats and shoes and button their own pants. Keep practicing, but be sure to send him to school in velcro shoes or something similar that he can do himself.

Kindergarten teachers are likely not going to be able to accompany their students to the bathroom. The students must be able to handle their own pants no overalls or onesies! Start practicing at age 4. The children who already know how to use their school supplies at the beginning of the year get a big gold star. Starting with the letters of their name , children who are entering kindergarten should know many of the letters. Kindergartners should be able to rote count … through 10 and also be able to count a set of objects 4 crackers with good one-to-one correspondence.

There is research that shows that children who have good phonological awareness skills Rhyming is one of them! Play with rhyming words with your child. But self-care and social and emotional skills are important for kindergarten readiness, too.

For example, does your child need help using the bathroom? Learn about the different kinds of skills kids are expected to have when they start kindergarten. Understand two-step directions. Start to connect letter sounds to letters like the sound of the first letter in their name. Count from 1 to 10 without skipping numbers. Use a pencil or crayon with some control. Make distinct marks that look like letters and write some actual letters, especially the ones in their name.

Kids develop skills at different rates. Some states use kindergarten readiness tests to get a sense of which early learners might need extra help in some areas. Learn about the pros and cons of delaying kindergarten for a year.