YOU are your child's first and most important teacher! Here are some things that can help you get ready for kindergarten.

• Listen to and talk with your child. Encourage your child to listen and use language to express ideas. Play games that require listening and following directions.
• Read and retell stories. Talk with your child about the stories after you read them.
• Read every night with your child and then TALK about it: author, illustrator, front and back cover, how to turn the pages, how we read from top to bottom and left to right, review what you have read.
• Talk about letters– identify the upper and lowercase letters and their sounds. Match uppercase with lowercase letters.
• Sing ABC and Number songs clearly. Point to letters and numbers as you sing along.
• Practice holding a pencil correctly and cutting with scissors.
• Work on identifying and writing their name, starting with a capital letter and following with lowercase letters. Say the letters to spell their name.
• Practice making and counting sets of objects up to ten, and then twenty.
• Practice counting to 100.
• Practice tying shoes, snapping buttons, and zipping zippers
• Identify the colors: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, gray, white, brown, black, orange
• Identify shapes: circle, oval, square, rectangle, star, heart, rhombus, triangle
• Practice using a mouse/IPad. Kindergartners will use technology daily.
• Read and sing nursery rhymes and rhyming stories with your child. Have them repeat the rhymes after you.
• Talk to them about "rhyming words."