Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Teaching Your Child Their Address and Phone Number

This is definitely something that we should have started doing before, but since my daughter is preparing for pre-k this coming year, I thought it was important to really step up the process of getting her to remember her address.

In the past few weeks, I was met with defeat. She just wasn’t interested and would always just start saying a bunch of different numbers and not the ones she was supposed to.

Luckily, the perfect opportunity came last night. Her father was checking out a new car that we did end up buying. We were in our car waiting, which was parked along this cute little forest.

My daughter says “There are aliens in there.”

I say “Oh Yeah?”

She proceed to tell me what planet they are from. Lol, it was a make believe planet that I can’t even attempt to spell.

I say “Why don’t you tell them where we live.” So, I practice a few times with her reciting our address and phone number.

After a few minutes she told every alien that came to our car that her name was “Sarah from planet Earth and that she lived at ------ St, in ----- New York. Also, if anyone wanted to call her they could do so at ----.”

As silly as it sounds, it worked. She still remembers everything today and I am going to keep on practicing with her.

It just goes to show that sometimes creativity is a must.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: An Easy Way to Help Your Child with Their Name

Does your child already know how to recognize their name? If not, it is a task that you will want to start working with them on. Most kindergarten students are expected to at least recognize their name, as well as try to accurately spell it.

Although there are a number of steps that you can take, there is one approach that I find to be the easiest. What you will want to do is grab a sheet of paper and spell out your child’s name in large letters and with a marker.

Next, point to each letter and tell your child what letter that is, as well as the sound that letter makes. Overtime, your child should be able to recognize their name easily. As an added bonus, have your child repeatedly trace the letters of their name. Not only will they be able to recognize their name soon, but they may be writing it as well.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Language Development

If you have been reading my last few posts, you may know that I am going over the kindergarten curriculum for my local elementary school. I am doing so to help answer that question of “what should I be teaching my child at home.”

Another section of my local school’s kindergarten curriculum is that of language development. Language development is important to children and the earlier that you get started with practicing, the better they are likely to be.

The good news is that it is so much fun to help your toddler or preschooler with their language development. You can do so by teaching them new words, carrying on mature conversations, and reading to your child. You can and should also encourage your child to make up their own stories.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Large Muscle Development

In my last post, I highlighted how small muscle development is a section on the curriculum for my local school’s kindergarten program. Large muscle development is another. If you are looking for ways to prepare your child for preschool or kindergarten at home and improve their large muscle development there are a number of steps that you can take.

The biggest step that you can take involves taking your child outside to play. When doing so, you can…

1 – Run
2 – Jump
3 – Skip
4 – Practice Balancing
5 – Play a Game of Catch

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Small Muscle Development

On the website for my local elementary school, they have a page that is devoted to what children will learn in kindergarten. This is known as their kindergarten curriculum.

Listed on that website is small muscle development. At first glance, small muscle development seems like something huge, but it really isn’t. There are a number of ways that you can improve your child’s small muscle development with them at home.

Steps You Can Take:

1 – Stringing Beads
2 – Cutting Paper**
3 – Playing with Playdough
4 – Coloring
5 – Writing or Tracing

**As an important side note, if you practice cutting with your child, be sure to use caution. There are scissors that are designed for small children, like toddlers and preschoolers. For safety reasons, you may want to purchase these types of scissors for your child.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Kindergarten Curriculum

A while ago, I was reviewing a few points that were highlighted on the kindergarten curriculum for my local school. I was doing so to showcase ways that you can not only prepare your child for preschool at home, but kindergarten as well. I plan to continue doing so over the next few posts.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Dressing One’s Self

My past few posts have highlighted items from the list of my local school’s kindergarten curriculum. Dressing one’s self is listed. This is important for going to the bathroom, as well as keeping shoes properly tied.

If your child is between the ages of 3 – 5, there is a good chance that they can already dress themselves, but you may want to give them a little bit more freedom. This is something that I am getting use to. My daughter can easily put on her own pants, shirts, and socks, but, as a parent, it is something that you get so use to doing. I actually cried the first time that my daughter told me “Mom, I know how to put my own shirt on.”

Preparing Your Child for Preschool and Kindergarten: Computer Skills

I was surprised to see computer skills listed on the curriculum list for my local elementary school’s kindergarten program. Although my daughter already knows how to use a computer, I was just surprised to see it there. I don’t think that I learned how to use a computer in school until at least 2nd or 3rd grade.

If you are like me, who is a parent that lets your child play preschool games on the computer, your child may already have a lot of computer skills. Personally, I am amazed with how easy it is for my daughter, who is four, to type her name on the computer or use the mouse.

Of course, the decision to allow your child to use the computer at home is your decision to make. If you are uncomfortable with letting your child use the internet, preschool computer games can also be purchased. My daughter also likes it when I open up a blank window for Microsoft Word. She loves typing her name and just pushing the keys in general.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Social Skills

In my last post, I mentioned how you may want to get a copy of your local elementary school’s curriculum for kindergarten. This can give you an idea of what your child should be learning or at least preparing for at home. For this post, we will focus on social interaction.

According to my school’s website, children will learn how to play well and work well with each other, show self-confidence, accept authority, and participate in large groups.

Unfortunately, if you are a stay-at-home parent (or a work-at-home parent like I am) social interaction can sometimes be difficult. Although this is something that your child will learn in kindergarten, should you choose to send them to a public school, you can still practice at home.

An easy step involves taking your child to a local park this summer. During the summertime, parks are filled with young children and their parents. Encourage your child to interact and play with other kids their age. You may also want to strike up conversations with other parents. You may be able to schedule play dates, even if they occur at the park.

It is also important to examine those that you know, like your friends or family members. Does anyone have kids that are around the same age as your child? If so, schedule a play date. Even if it is only once a week or once every two weeks, it is important to get your child interacting socially.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Kindergarten Curriculum

Whether you are interested in preparing your child for preschool or kindergarten or if you are looking to implement your own homeschool preschool program, you may be curious as to what you should be teaching your child. To get an idea, you may want to get a hold of the curriculum list for your local school’s kindergarten program.

As for how you can do so, you can contact your local elementary school. You may also find the same information online. Our local elementary school has curriculum lists on their website.

These lists will focus on what your child should learn in kindergarten. You can get a head start by teaching your child things on that list, but you will at least want to try to get them up to point when they can easily learn and follow the kindergarten curriculum.

Over the next few days, I will be reviewing the curriculum for my local school’s kindergarten program. I will also outline a few ways that you can work on your child with each point.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Benefits of Recording the Experience

In my last post, I outlined how you may want to consider video taping or taking pictures of your child preparing for preschool at home. As nice as it is to hear that you should do so, you may be wondering exactly why you should. If that is the case, you will want to continue reading on.

Just the fact that you are able to have pictures of your child or videos of them is enough reason to record your at-home preschool experiences with your child. Many parents treasure the memories documented of their children and this should be the same. It is also important to mention that preschool, whether you are preparing for it or doing it at home, is a big step in your child’s life.

In addition to keeping a collection of photographs, many parents also create scrapbooks. If you are making a scrapbook, which will later be passed down to your child, you will want to have pictures of their at-home preschool experience.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Documentation

If you are working to prepare your child for preschool at home or homeschool preschool them, have you taken out the camera or the camcorder? If you have yet to do so, it is something that you may want to think about doing. Whether you and your child are playing a preschool computer game or if your child is doing preschool worksheets, you should be able to get some really cute pictures or videos of them and this proud moment.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool: Finding the Time

I recently had someone ask me how I found the time to work with my daughter, on her education, at home. In all honesty, I am a stay-at-home / work-at-home parent. I try and work at night, as I am a freelance writer and my schedule tends to give me some flexibility. Being home does make it A LOT easier to help prepare my daughter for preschool or even kindergarten.

With that in mind, however, even if you work outside of the home, there are multiple ways that you can go about preparing your child for preschool or kindergarten. Some of the activities that I have outlined and ones that I will continue to outline in the future don’t have to take all day. In fact, I have a preschool workbook that is designed for both parents and children, as it doubles as a text book / activity book. It says in that book that 30 minutes a day is perfect for preparing your child for preschool.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Stickers for Rewards

I believe that I have mentioned before that I feel that stickers are good for rewards, when doing something like a preschool workbook or when playing another preschool game. Pictured above is the stickers that I use. Lol, I bought them from the Dollar Tree, which I love.

These sticker books are also sold at a number of different retailers. What I like about them is that they are crammed full of stickers; stickers of all different sizes. When you consider the price of them, these little sticker books are a pretty good value.

What I do is give my daughter a sticker to place on her worksheet when she is finished. For her, it is more exciting for her to place her own sticker on the paper than it is for me to do so. I also give her stickers after doing flashcards. She actually gets a sticker every time that she gets a flashcard right. This is where having the smaller sized stickers comes in handy.

Preparing Your Child for Preschool – Ink Stamps

I am so excited, lol I need to get out more. So I stop at my favorite store today (lol, where else but the Dollar Tree) and look at what I found. This neat little stamp set.

Okay, they are really cheap and sort of flimsy, but you can’t expect much with something that only costs a dollar. I have never really looked into ink stamps, as they are usually expensive. What I am going to do is use these in place of stickers for a while on my daughter’s preschool worksheets.
I think that I covered this before too, but if you work on your child with just about anything, whether it be preschool worksheets, flash cards, and so forth, you may want to think about rewarding your child, even if it is just with something like a small stamp or a sticker. I find that it keeps my daughter more interested in learning.

Play Dough: Great for Writing Skills

The other day, I had a meeting with a woman from a local preschool program. We were talking about my daughter and how she is learning to read and write. The writing part she wanted to do on her own, as she just started tracing all the letters.

Anyways, the woman that we were meeting with asked if she played with building blocks or play dough when she was younger. She did. She explained to me about how they say children that play with play dough and building blocks are likely to have an easier time with writing, at least when they first get started with it. So, if you haven’t already, you may want to think about breaking out the play dough.

Making Your Own Educational Signs

Yesterday, I mentioned how you can buy educational signs to hang up in an area of your home. In addition to buying signs, you may also want to think about making your own.

Above is a picture of shapes and color signs that I created for my daughter. Lol, you can tell that I am definitely not an artist and please pay no attention to the cobwebs in the corner of the wall!

Even though a large number of educational signs can be purchased for a more than an affordable price, you may still want to think about making your own. In fact, you may also want to let your child help you, even if it is just with the coloring in of a shape.

Educational Signs

If you are looking for an easy way to help educate your child from home or prepare them for preschool, you may want to think about buying educational signs. These signs come in a number of different formats. In the picture posted above, is an alphabet sign that I bought from my local Dollar Tree store.

What is nice about posting educational signs up in the area that you and your child spend the most time at, or even just in their room, is you never really know when they may use them. There are times when my daughter will be sitting in the living room area, look over at her alphabet sign and just start singing her ABCs.

Preschool Worksheets

Another great way to work with your child at home is through the use of preschool worksheets. Preschool worksheets come in a number of different formats. For instance, you can get a collection of preschool worksheets by purchasing workbooks or you can print off individual worksheets online.

My daughter loves doing preschool worksheets. Depending on the age of your child, you may need to work with them, step-by-step. There are some preschool worksheets that my daughter can do on her own, once the instructions are explained to her, but there are more complicated preschool worksheets that she still needs assistance with occasionally.

Before we start working on a preschool worksheet, I make a big deal about writing her name at the top of the page. She now traces her name and will hopefully be writing it out herself soon. After she has completed a preschool worksheet page, whether she did so on her own or with help, I always put a sticker on her page or write a small “good job,” message.

Flash Cards + Rewards = A Happy Learner

Yesterday, I mentioned how flash cards are a good start, when looking to start educating your child from home. The flash cards themselves are pretty new and exciting, but as time wears on, you may need to come up with some ideas to keep your child interested in learning with them. For this, I recommend stickers.

What we do is buy those little sticker books, the ones that tend to have like 500 or so stickers in them. Some of the stickers are really small, but there are also some larger sized stickers in the books. What is nice about these types of stickers is that they are available in many dollar stores. I can always find a large selection of sticker books at my local Dollar Tree.

We would start out by taking a piece of construction paper. My daughter would choose the color that she wanted and I would write her name at the top of the page. Every time that my daughter would get a flash card right, she would get a sticker. She would then place her sticker on her paper.

A little bit more than a year later, my daughter still loves learning with her flash cards, especially if she gets her stickers!