The transition from preschool to kindergarten is certainly an exciting milestone, and for some parents it can also be a little scary if you are unsure your child is ready.
Here are some important questions to ask yourself.
Can your child do the following?
- Say and write their name
- Print the letters of the alphabet.
- Recognize the uppercase letters of the alphabet out of order.
- Recognize the lowercase letters of the alphabet out of order.
- Write numbers to 10.
- Recognize numbers to 10 out of order
- Recognize and name basic shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, oval, diamond, heart, diamond)
- Recognize and name basic colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, white)
If you think your child may need more practice or you just want to check, try these worksheets below.
1. Students Can Say and Write Their Name
Try this easy name writing worksheet which can be printed out and used again and again for practice – “I Know My Name“.
2. Print the Letters of the Alphabet
You can find many letter tracing and writing activities by browsing our Free Worksheets. I’ve included a few popular worksheets in this post. If your student can not write the letter independently at all, you may want to try a tracing worksheet first. After that, we’ve got some great additional practice pages for writing letters independently.
3. Recognize Uppercase Letters Out of Order
The first step in learning letters is learning them in ABC order. Students do this through songs, games, and repetition. We all know some version of the alphabet song which can be sung together with students while pointing to the letters. The key to mastery is repeat, repeat, repeat. Also, singing really is a lot of fun for all young kids. If you can’t remember the song (heaven forbid), you can easily find many fun alphabet songs by doing an internet search or looking at Youtube.
Once students have memorized the letter in order, then next step in uppercase letter mastery is recognizing them out of order. You can use our letter matching worksheets for this. Here are a couple.
4. Recognize Lowercase Letters Out of Order
During the heat of summer, it’s fun to think about cooling off in the snow. Why not practice letters using these winter letter matching activities.
Practice recognition of lowercase letters by matching lowercase and uppercase letters out of order. There are many more free letter worksheets for further practice if you browse through our alphabet activities.
5. Write Numbers to 10
Maybe, your student learned to write their numbers to 10 in preschool, TK, or at home. If you child needs practice writing numbers or recognizing numbers to 10, try these worksheets.
6. Recognize Numbers to 10 Out of Order
Students learn numbers to 10 through repeated practice counting objects and pictures. Just like letter learning, it is also fun to sing number songs which can be found online. Try a simple search.
Practice counting pictures, writing numbers, and matching numbers with these free number worksheets.
7. Recognize Basic Shapes
In order to learn shapes, play shape games with kids (like finding shapes in the supermarket together or in the neighborhood), draw shapes together, and try some of these shapes matching worksheets. Remember, we want our kiddos to know the following shapes before entering kindergarten (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, oval, heart, star).
8. Recognize Basic Colors
Using colors constantly for making art, pictures, coloring with crayons, and painting will familiarize students with colors before beginning kindergarten. You can provide more practice recognizing colors by giving them any worksheets that can also be colored. A combination of asking students to tell which colors they use and instructing students to use specific colors will help reinforce color recognition skills.
In addition to coloring the free worksheets on Free4classrooms.com , you can find many great resources on the internet. You’ll find hundreds of coloring worksheets and activities by doing a search on Madebyteachers.com. This link will list results of search for “coloring pages” on their site.
How Much is Too Much?
If you are working with your own child at home, it is important to keep learning fun. Don’t give them too much work each day. Every child is different and you know your own child, so you can easily figure out how much is too much. It is summertime after all, so leave plenty of time for play while preparing for kindergarten.
