It’s never too early to prepare your child for Kindergarten.  The earlier you start, the more time you have to ensure that all the basic skills are underway for schooling.  No matter the choice of home school, private school or public school; preparedness is necessary.

The following guidelines can be used to determine your child’s readiness for school:

• Listen to stories without interrupting
• Recognize rhyming sounds
• Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
• Understand actions have both causes and effects
• Show understanding of general times of day
• Cut with scissors
• Trace basic shapes
• Begin to share with others
• Start to follow rules
• Be able to recognize authority
• Manage bathroom needs
• Button shirts, pants, coats, and zip up zippers
• Begin to control oneself
• Separate from parents without being upset
• Speak understandably
• Talk in complete sentences of five to six words
• Look at pictures and then tell stories
• Identify rhyming words
• Identify the beginning sound of some words
• Identify some alphabet letters
• Recognize some common sight words like “stop”
• Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape
• Recognize groups of one, two, three, four, and five objects
• Count to ten
• Bounce a ball

As we progress through the various objectives through this list, suggested activities and tips will be provided for use with your child.