Kindergarten

Kindergarten children notice that words are all around — in books, at the supermarket, at the bus stop and in their homes. They play with language by creating silly rhymes and nonsense words. While this is usually great fun, it is also a very important step in learning to read.

Teachers read a variety of poems, stories, and non-fiction books aloud to children. Kindergarten children learn that letters and sounds go together to form words, and how to identify alphabet letters and their sounds. Many kindergarten children are expected to read words by the end of the year.

Parents may receive their child’s first poem, as kindergartners will be asked to do more writing than preschoolers. Your kindergartener’s journal may look like a combination of letter strings and scribbles to most people, but it carries a most important message — that he can write to create his own stories, to tell about his experiences, and to share information.

Math
Counting cubes, number rods, and other math materials help kindergartners work with a larger set of numbers. Children also begin to use physical materials to solve simple addition and subtraction problems, like how many cookies they’ll have left after they’ve shared some with a friend. They’ll learn about time, using tools like clocks and calendars regularly in the classroom. While they’re not fully able to tell time or even realize exactly what a month or a second is, they’ll begin to understand that one measures a longer amount of time, and the other a short amount.

Science
In kindergarten, children learn about plants and animals and explore the weather and seasons. Teachers use simple science experiments to introduce children to the process of scientific inquiry. Kindergarteners are now capable of remembering more information and using it to make connections between things. They can separate toy animals into groups, such as those that are found on the land, sea, or sky; or animals that hatch from eggs and animals that do not.

Kindergarteners have grown a lot since their preschool days. They’ve grown bigger and are becoming more graceful and coordinated. They’ve grown intellectually and can focus on tasks for longer periods of time. They’ve grown socially and have a better handle on the skills needed to make friends and work in a group. They’ve become complex thinkers and are better able to understand detailed answers to the many “why” questions they have about the world.