Get Ready for Kindergarten!

As children grow they reach different milestones in life.  One of the most important milestones is entering kindergarten.  The entrance into kindergarten marks the start of a formal education and we at the Greenwich/Stow Creek Partnership Schools strive to make it a successful one.

Since birth children have been learning from parents, grandparents, caregivers, and siblings. Our job is to begin to harness that knowledge and strengthen it to help develop physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and verbal growth. To help make this transition to school successful we have compiled the following list of things your child should know before entering kindergarten in September.

Pre-Academics

Child should…

  • Know his or her name, address, phone number and birthday.
  • Be able to write his or her name.
  • Recognize some uppercase and lowercase letters.
  • Recognize colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown, pink and gray.
  • Recognize shapes: circle, square, rectangle, oval/ellipse, triangle, diamond, rhombus, heart and star.
  • Recognize numbers 1-10, orally count to 20 and count 20 objects.
  • Recite the alphabet.
  • Understand positional concepts, such as up , down, top, bottom , over, under, beside, in, out, on and off.
  • Introduce himself or herself by first and last name.

Adaptive skills

Child has the ability to…

  • Independently use the restroom.
  • Button and zip pants.
  • Wash and dry hands.
  • Put on and zip coat.
  • Follow one- and two- step directions.
  • Tie shoes.

Social skills

Child is able to have appropriate social interactions, such as…

  • Being able to share.
  • Being willing to take turns with others.
  • Playing simple childhood games.
  • Attending to an activity for 20 minutes.
  • Being able to role play.
  • Being able to determine roles in dramatic play.

Language skills

Child has the ability to…

  • Define objects by how they are used.
  • Understand same/different, far/near, in front of/behind, and first/last.
  • Use sentences of five to six words.
  • Use future, present and past tense verbs when speaking.
  • Use personal pronouns (I, he, she, they and we).
  • Tell stories, ask questions, and exchange information with minimal prompting.
  • Reply to simple questions.

Motor skills

Child is comfortable…

  • Grasping a pencil appropriately.
  • Correctly using scissors.
  • Stringing small beads.
  • Copying a square and triangle.
  • Cutting, pasting and coloring to make a project.
  • Skipping a short distance.
  • Galloping for a short distance.