Kindergarten Skills Development: Month 1

Skills to Practice this Month

• Teach your child socially acceptable ways to disagree. Talk to your child about how to cooperate with others and ways to express anger, frustration, or a different opinion without hitting, biting, or other unacceptable expressions.

• Demonstrate common expressions of courtesy and praise your child for using them. Say "please" and "thank you" and encourage your child to do so also.

Activities

• To help your child express her feelings and talk about emotions, make "Feelings Puppets." Have your child draw or glue pictures of faces to express happy, sad, angry, and surprised on paper plates. Attach a craft stick to each plate with strong tape or a stapler. Tell a short story and ask your child to hold up the plate that shows how the people in the story might feel. Then let your child tell the story and you hold up the appropriate face.

• Sing the Happy/Angry Song to the tune of " Are You Sleeping?" Ask your child, "What makes you happy?" "What makes you angry?" Insert their responses in the blanks and have the child act out the feelings. Sing several rounds.

I feel happy, I feel happy-
See me smile, see me smile.
Happy, happy, happy,
_______ makes me happy.
See me smile, see me smile.

I feel angry, I feel angry-
See me frown, see me frown.
Angry, angry, angry-
_______ makes me angry.
See me frown, see me frown.

Extend this song to other feelings: grumpy (see me pout), silly (see me wiggle), proud (see me strut), sad (see me cry), scared (see me shiver)

Books for Children Further listings available at http://www.getSet4k.org

• Feelings by Aliki

• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss

• Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods that Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis

• Things that Make You Feel Good/Things that Make You Feel Bad by Todd Parr

• What I Look Like When I am Angry by Heidi Johansen

Books for Parents Further listings available at http://www.getSet4k.org

• Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times by Zoe Weil

• Bringing Up a Moral Child: A New Approach for Teaching Your Child to Be Kind, Just, and Responsible by Michael Schulman

Getting Ready to Read

Skills to Practice this Month

• Provide pencils, markers, and paper and encourage your child to draw and scribble or write.

• Give your child the opportunity and the materials to pretend to write as well as read.

• Help your child to improve his small motor skills by allowing him to use crayons, pencils, scissors and other craft and writing supplies.

• Keep scrap paper handy and writing materials available at different places around the house, in the car, etc.

• Talk to your child about what things are appropriate (paper) and inappropriate (desks) to write on.

Health and Wellness

Skills to Practice this Month

• Provide a daily routine that includes regular times for meals. Your child's school day will follow a routine, with certain events happening at the same time each day, including mealtime. Create your own routine that includes waking and bedtimes, mealtimes, time for fun, time for chores and schoolwork, and time to relax. Make sure your child eats breakfast every morning and dinner every night.

• Establish a bedtime that gives your child eight or more hours of sleep at night. Establish a bedtime that works for you and your child. Create a bedtime routine that lets your child know that it is now time to start getting ready for bed. Unwind and prepare for bed by doing quiet activities like reading a book or telling a bedtime story. Talk about your day. More information available at http://www.getSet4k.org