Who's Ready for Kindergarten?

   Pre-kindergarten graduation is bittersweet at The Children's Center of Austin. It's amazing to watch our children grow by leaps and bounds. It can be difficult for us to let go our of children as they embark on their new journey to kindergarten. We know that when our alumni students arrive to kindergarten, they are confident and ready!

The expectations of kindergarten go beyond being able to recognize the alphabet and numbers. Here's what our community kindergarten teachers want.

• An ability to listen. Can your child sit for a story or activity for a period of time? Something as simple as sitting down and listening to a captivating story promotes rich language, develops attention skills, and will help build your child's concentration. It's important to read to your child and ask questions about the storyline. Active listening is important to a child's learning process. 

• Socially and emotionally apt. Children need to learn and work together in a group setting. Even at kindergarten age, children can sometimes still be territorial about toys and friends. Children need to be given the opportunity to practice their problem solving and negotiating skills with other children in the way of taking turns, using their words to convey their feelings about people and situations. If you find that it's difficult to for your child to initiate problem solving, encourage them to convey their concerns about the situation and allow processing time for your child to come up with ways to resolve the situation. 

• Strong fine motor skills. Children need strong fine motor skills in order to cut, paste, and even hold a pencil. A way to strengthen the small muscles in your child's palm and fingers is by crafting. One of our favorite activities is stringing cereal on to string or pipe cleaners. Sorting beads by color is another fun solution for building fine motor development. 

• Self independence is key. Children need to learn how to button their coats, tie their own shoes, go to the bathroom and wash their hands, open and unwrap their lunch items. 

• Letter and number recognition. Children entering kindergarten should be able to distinguish upper and lower case letters. Children should also recognize and be able to show the value of numbers. 

If you are in the area and would like an visit a pre-kindergarten classroom, please call us at 512-266-6130. We would love to meet you and your child.