How to Prepare Your Child for Kindergarten

When your child turns five years old a whole new world opens up to them. School! You may feel sad, anxious, excited or even scared about this new stage in your child's life. How do they feel about it? They may be just as sad, anxious, excited and scared as you are. Here are a few tips that I have learned over the years on how to prepare your child for kindergarten.

Kindergarten is considered the first grade in your child's school life. It is a fun and exciting grade full of coloring, storytimes and new friends. Your child will learn and review colors, shapes, numbers and the alphabet. Some children may actually end the school year with the wonderful ability to read.

If your child is getting ready to enter kindergarten you may want to help make the transition a little smoother. These days a lot of children start out by going to daycare and/or preschool before they start kindergarten. If that is the case with your child than they are already use to the day to day routine of going to "school". If on the other hand, your child has been at home with you during their first five years of life, like mine were and are, these tips may be helpful to you.

First of all, I found that starting a bedtime and wake up routine at least one month before school started was extremely helpful in preparing for school days. Five and six year olds need an average of 10 to 12 hours of sleep each night. You will need to take this into account when deciding on a good bedtime and wakeup time. Also consider how long it would take your child to be fully awake and ready for a school day. Some children need more time to wake up and be productive.

If your child needs to be at school by 8am every day you should think about when you should wake him or her to accomplish arriving at school in time for class to begin. Will they have breakfast at school? When will you need to leave your home in order to get your child to school on time? These are all important things to think about in order to make your child's school experience a smooth and peacful one. No one likes a rushed morning. Least of all your five year old.

At this age my children had to go to bed by 7pm so that they would be asleep by 8pm. Then their wakeup time was at 6am every morning. School started at 8am. My girls always ate breakfast at school so I had to make sure that they arrived at school by 7:25am in order to have enough time to eat all of their breakfast. That is why we had to wake up by 6am.

The next item to help your child prepare for kindergarten would be to talk about school in a positive manner. You could tell them what their days would be like while at school. Emphasize all of the fun and exciting new things your child will experience in kindergarten. You may even want to do several school acitivities at home to show your child what it would be like to do schoolwork. There are many websites where you can print grade appropriate worksheets for free so that your child will be able to practice the things he or she will learn at school. My favorite website is http://www.dltk-kids.com/ .

Once school starts it is a good idea to have your child help with decision-making about their day. You could let them choose things like their clothes for the day, accessories, shoes, hair-do, socks or even just their favorite pair of underwear. If your child takes lunch to school you could let them choose what type of sandwich, fruit or drink that they could take. Anything that would make them feel in charge of their daily activities will help them throughout the school day.

When dressing your child for school it's a good idea to make sure that their clothes are comfortable, weather appropriate and easy to play in. An easy trick that I've learned, from years of having very girly girls, is to put shorts under dresses and skirts. This way you won't have to worry about a dress coming up during playtime.

This is an exciting time in your child's life. They will have so many new experiences and will meet many new friends. Enjoy their excitement and listen intently when they tell you stories of the things that happened during their day at school. They will love showing you all the neat things they've learned in school that day. Cherish this time in their life. It only lasts a short time.

I hope that these tips will help you prepare your child for kindergarten.