Transition Into Kindergarten with a Routine Book

Kindergarten may be fun, but it’s also a big adjustment for many kids. Suddenly, they move from relatively freeform preschool days to structured days with serious expectations for teamwork and good behavior. So if your new kindergartener seems a little overwhelmed, there’s good reason for it. You can help reassure your child by maintaining steady, predictable routines. In this fun and creative activity, you can help her read one of her own typical days in a personal book that helps her transition from preschool to kindergarten and encourages reading and routines.

What You Need:

• 10 pieces of cardstock paper, 5-1/2x8-1/2 (One white for the cover, and 9 more in 3 different colors)
• Photograph of your child
• Glue Stick
• Black marker
• Markers, crayons, or colored pencils
• 3 hole punch and 3 clip “rings”

What to Do:

1. Working with your child, start with a cover.  Write a title in big block letters, such as “My Regular Day.”  Have your child glue her photograph onto the middle of the page and write her name at the bottom.
2. Next, seperate the 9 pieces of paper by color so you have three sets of three pages. The first three pages are for “morning” activities, the second for “afternoon,” and the third for “evening.”
3. Write in clear block letters across the bottom of each page. Keep it simple and aim for repetition in words because “predictable” texts are a key aspect of early reading instruction. Be sure that you have only one sentence per page. Here are some suggestions...

• In the morning, I wake up and get dressed.
• In the morning, I eat breakfast.
• In the morning, I go to school.
• In the afternoon, I eat lunch.
• In the afternoon, I come home from school. 
• In the afternoon, I read/play/have activities.
• In the evening, I eat dinner.
• In the evening, I read/play/take a bath.
• In the evening, I go to bed. 

4. Above each sentence, have your child draw herself doing that action. (Note: most kids love to do this but if you have a reluctant artist, you can always try photographing your child and making a book from those pictures.)
5. Have your child put each section in sequence in order of . Use the three-hole punch in the margin of the pages, and bind the book with the three clip-on rings.
6. You can read it to your child at first, but as soon as she’s ready invite her to read to you.  Go through it nightly as a reassuring message that there’s lots of change in kindergarten, but a lot of things stay the same.