Chicago's Top Rated Local® Before & After School Care
Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?
As a parent of a young child, it can be hard to know what you could be doing to help prepare your child for kindergarten, elementary school, and beyond.
Kindergarten is a space where your child will grow, interact with their peers, and learn valuable skills that will serve them well in the future. In today’s post, we’ll talk about some of the skills your child will need when they get to kindergarten, and what you can do as a parent to help promote those skills.
With Just For Kids, you’ve found a daycare center and preschool program dedicated to creating a safe, fun, and happy environment for girls and boys. Enroll your children in a preschool program at Just For Kids in Chicago today!
Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?
This question is a loaded question — especially since not all children are the same. But there are some skills that you can work to give your children to better equip them for when they attend kindergarten, including the ability to:
- Identify some letters of the alphabet
- Count from one to ten
- Speak in complete sentences
- Bounce a ball
- Recognize simple sight words
- Hold scissors, paint, pencils, and other art materials
- Go to the bathroom by themselves
- Follow direction
- Clean up after themselves
- Spend the day without their parents
While children will naturally pick up on many of these skills as you read and interact with them. But some of these are the skills that your child can develop during preschool.
A Preschool Program
Have you considered sending your child to a preschool program? Preschool programs are a great stepping stone to help introduce your child to a kindergarten-like environment before they actually become kindergarteners.
At Just For Kids, we’ve designed our preschool program to provide different benefits to your child, including:
- Develop problem-solving skills
- Foster independence & build self-confidence
- Encourage the development of language and cognitive skills
- Play with other children their age
When they start developing these skills while they’re in preschool, they will have a stronger foundation for when they get to kindergarten.
Tips for Parents
The developmental, physical, and emotional growth your child experiences also happens when you’re at home. As a parent, think about the tasks you give your child and the ways that you engage with them day to day. These daily routines and interactions can help your child reach different developmental milestones and learn skills that will help them when they get to kindergarten.
That’s why we wanted to provide some tips for parents on ways to ensure that you’re encouraging the skills your child will use once they get to kindergarten.
Something as simple as creating a routine where you take time each night to read to your child can help build their vocabulary skills — and create an interest in reading. Beyond that, give them different tasks that foster independence, teach them to be responsible for their needs and the messes they make, and take some time to sit down and have conversations with them about their day. All of these tips work to help your child grow and better prepare for when they head to school.
Enroll in Preschool at Just For Kids Today
We hope that this blog helps you better understand the different ways you can support your child to help prepare them for kindergarten. If you haven’t considered preschool yet, preschool can serve as a valuable tool to help introduce your child to a classroom and reach different developmental milestones before they start kindergarten.
Want to learn more about our preschool program? Our team at Just For Kids in Chicago is here to answer and questions you have, or schedule a tour of our preschool. Just contact us today with questions or to enroll your child!
Take a look at our previous blog posts for more tips and information about our daycare services and preschool program: