Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
A7
JULY 2017
COUNTDOWN TO
KINDERGARTEN
What do we mean by kindergarten transition?
The word transition refers to the process of change. When your child starts kindergarten it will be one of
the most significant changes they will experience in their life. They are leaving either the home environment,
preschool classroom or childcare setting to enter a new place. They will be expected to learn a new set of
rules, adjust to a new peer group, interact with a new teacher, perhaps ride a bus for the first time, eat in the
cafeteria, and the list goes on.
What can parents do to make this a smooth process?
All adjustments are stressful but when parents, teachers and administrators work together the process of
transitioning to kindergarten is smoother. Reasearch has shown that a child’s adjustment to school has a
significant impact on later academic achievment.
> Make sure that your child is registered for Kindergarten, forms can be picked up at local schools in your
community. Please don’t wait until the first day of school, specific information and documentation such as
immunization records are needed before your child may attend.
> Each school district in the county will have activities planned for parents and children to get to know their
teachers and to visit their schools. These can be Kindergarten Roundups, Move-up days, or visits to tour the
classrooms & meet teachers and staff. To know what is happening in your community it is always best to
contact the school directly for dates and times.
> Parents, talking to your child about the upcoming changes is always a good idea. They will have
questions and concerns about what will take place and your reasurrance will help reduce the stress.
> Your child needs to see that their parents are involved with their new school and that they communicte
regularly with teachers and administrative staff. This will be a change for you too parents, but if you make
the effort to be involved your child will know that their education is important. So think about volunteering
in your childs classroom or joining a parent group.
The Frontier Early Learning Hub
urges all parents to be involved
in their childs education. Contact
information for schools in
Grant County are listed below.
Prairie City School District
Long Creek School District
Monument School District
Seneca Elementary School
Dayville Elementary School
Humbolt Elementary School
740 S Overholt
375 E Main St
127 North St
100 Park Ave
285 School house RD
325 N Humbolt
541 820-4100
541 421-3896
541 934-2646
541 542-2542
541 987-2412
541 575-0454
Ten Kindergarten Readiness Tips for Parents
1. Writing – Children should practice writing, and with more than a pen, pencil, crayon or marker. Bring
on something more tactile, and involve more than just letters. For example, put 1/4 cup of gel into a ziploc
sandwich bag. Get all the air out and seal it shut. Then, have the child use a finger to draw letters, shapes,
numbers, pictures…
2. Letter Recognition – Play “memory” using ABC flash cards. Make sure to call out the letters you
find.
3. Beginning Sounds – Know a letter, but also know the sound it makes. Play the following game
using a deck of Phonics flash cards. Draw a card from the deck and talk about the sound for that letter.
Then, go for a walk around the house and look for items that have the same beginning sound.
4. Numbers and Counting – Hi-Ho Cherry-O is a great game for learning numbers and counting. It’s
helpful and useful. A bonus is that on the game board, each of the sets of cherries on the spinner not only
has the number of cherries to show how many you got on that spin, but it also has the actual number
written on them. This helps the children learn how many that number is for.
5. Shapes and Colors – Fruity Cheerios have many colors and are a great tool for learning them.
Give a child a small bowl of Fruity Cheerios and ask them to find all the blues, all the yellows, etc. Then
have line drawings of shapes and have them place the Cheerios in the line drawings to create the colorful
shapes.
6. Fine Motor Skills – Use children’s scissors and Play-Doh, and instruct children to cut the Play-Doh
into shapes, e.g. a snake, sailboat, flower, baseball, etc. This is one of the most important tasks for
Kindergarten readiness
7. Reading Readiness – Incorporate rhymes when developing reading readiness. Have children
make a rhyming book by stapling some pages together and writing a word
at the top of each page. Have the child come up with as many rhyming
words as possible for each page. Kids will love reading this book over and
over, and adding more rhyming words as they come up with new ones.
8. Following Directions – This one is what the teachers want
more than anything! Practice this activity using a Simon Says style
game. Write out different commands on small sheets of paper, then
draw three and have the kids listen and do the commands. e.g.
Turn around, clap your hands, and stick out your tongue.
9. Social Skills – Social Skills includes being able to
look at someone and understand how they are feeling.
Teach children to identify feelings using pictures of
different moods and expressions. Have the children explain
what each picture represents. Ask the children how did they
know, and when are times that they feel this way.
10. Cutting – Cutting lessons can be
incorporated into the same activity
as the Fine Motor Skills as
mentioned above in number six.
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