One day I blinked and my baby was five. I literally just blinked and this tiny coo-ing bundle of drool and giggles turned into a sweet and sassy preschooler. And now that she’s five “whole years old” she knows everything and is super excited to start “big kid school” in the fall.

Me not so much.

I find myself struggling with the fact that it’s gone by so fast. That my little bitty baby, will soon be packed in a school full of self proclaimed “big kids.” I’m certain there will be a few tears shed at kindergarten registration. Spoiler alert – they won’t be hers.

But… I can take comfort in the fact that she’s ready, and really pumped about making new friends and learning new things. As parents, it’s completely natural to worry whether or not our kid is ready for school. Luckily, after 10 years of teaching, mostly in kindergarten, I knew completely what to expect, and how to set her up for success in the first year of her academic career.

Not to mention, as a former kindergarten teacher, these are things I wish, all parents knew. So in hopes that all kids come to kindergarten ready, I’ve created this guide of kindergarten prep tips your child’s teacher wished you knew.

Kindergarten today is very different from the kindergarten you knew when you were a child. That is the one thing that consistently shocked the parents each year I taught. They expected the whole year to be learning colors and letters, fun,  play and simple socialization. While developmental studies suggest this is what kindergarten should be. It is not.

In most states, including my own, your child is expected to be reading by Christmas. Unfortunately, a great deal of parents don’t understand this. They still expect their child’s kindergarten experience to mirror their own from twenty + years ago.  Noooppppeee.

Not.even.close.

Today’s kindergarten is fast paced and rigorous. Many students struggle to keep up from the start. Even if your child went to preschool, there’s a good chance that the curriculum they used doesn’t align well with the expectations of today’s kindergarten.

So to bridge that gap, and help you get your preschooler for “big kid school”, I’ve created this guide full of tips on preparing for kindergarten. Be sure to read all the way through, and check out the free printable at the end!

1. Know their first and last name and emergency information

While not necessarily a part of kindergarten curriculum, this is an essential step. Every year, I would have children who could not even tell me their last name. I’m sure it didn’t occur to their parents to explicitly teach them this, but it’s crucial your child knows.

In an emergency situation, your child needs to know their name. It is also important that they know basic information like their street address and city. Have them also memorize a contact number for you or Dad. It sounds like a lot, but if you just start reviewing it daily, like during car rides, they will have it before you know it.

While you’re at it, go over emergency plans and review safety rules before starting. You will never regret practicing things like this too much.

2. Be able to properly hold and use writing and craft tools

There is absolutely to hold a pencil. Not holding a pencil correctly can result in decreased motor control which ultimately controls hand writing. Some kids naturally have better fine motor control than others, however, proper pencil grip can go a long ways towards improving handwriting.

If you’re unsure how to teach your child the proper way to hold their pencil, a quick Google search gives tons of great videos! Several of the videos offer unique tricks if your child is struggling with it.

However, correctly holding pencils isn’t the only important motor skill task they will need encounter. Cutting with scissors can be very difficult with young children. Showing them how to use scissors correctly and providing practice with this skill is extremely beneficial.

It is also very helpful for children to have experience with a variety of art mediums including crayons, markers, paint and more. Exposure to glue and glue sticks is also great! Explicitly teaching children expectations when using these materials is a great way to help prepare them for school.

3. Write their name

This simple task is sooooo important! It is done many, many times a day, and while the vast majority of kindergartners are able to do this, a good deal are not. Even more are not able to do it correctly.

While it is great if they know how to write their name in any manner, you’re child’s teacher would greatly prefer if you taught them the “kindergarten way.”

The “kindergarten way” is an extremely technical term for using capital and lowercase letters correctly. Most children learn to write their names in uppercase letters. While this is great temporarily, it’s certainly not how their name will appear in real life. Teaching them the right way from the start, or correcting it before kindergarten will help them gain valuable instructional time where they actually learn to write.

4. Recognize letters, upper case and lower

Your kindergarten will explicitly teach this, but with one catch. It will be really quick Ideally in the first 9 weeks or less. Gone are the days of letter of the week activities in kindergarten. This is a luxury for preschoolers. Your child will need to know them, and fast, because like we said, they’ll be reading in 4 short months!

Your child needs to identify as many upper and lowercase letters as possible. Ideally they will know all of them.

If you haven’t started working with your child on letters, never fear! I’ve created an entire free letter of the week curriculum for preschool that explicitly teaches letters and sounds! It is written as a 26 week program, which takes approximately 6 months to complete. However, it can be modified to be as short, or as long as you need it to be.

5. Awareness and understanding of books

In the education world we call this print concepts and reading behaviors. It is as simple as knowing the way the words move on a page, and as complicated as understanding the difference between a letter, word and number.

Children that are read to pick up on a lot of this naturally. However, there are some things that need to be explicitly taught. These things can be a little trickier for some children and take some extra time and practice to process.

Unfortunately, this is also one of the things your child will likely be expected to master very quickly at the beginning of the school year. Since most kindergartners are expected to be reading by Christmas, they are going to be simultaneously learning letters and sounds, reading behaviors and print concepts, and site words. This is very counter intuitive and confusing, as students clearly need to understand the difference between letters, words and sentences before mastering all of these and beginning to read.

Because it is a little more complicated than it sounds, and also because we’ve established that I’m a total teacher geek, I’ve already written an entire post dedicated to teaching print concepts and reading behaviors. I’ve even included some freebies! If you don’t have time to check it out now, be sure to pin it for later!

6. Orally count to and recognize numbers 1-10

By the time your child leaves kindergarten, he or she will most likely be expected to recognize, count and write numbers from 1 to 100. That’s a long way to get from zero. Additionally they will be expected to have concept of number and understand what those numbers represent in mathmatical quanity. They will add numbers and subtract numbers and even begin very basic algebraic math problems.

They are expected to know so much by the end of the year, it is incredible. And while most preschool students are taught the basics like counting to ten, it may not occur with students who haven’t previously been in a preschool setting.

Your child will again, be exposed to a very brief review of counting and number recognition at the beginning of the year and will quickly move on to much more difficult tasks. Already having mastered these skills will allow your child to keep up with the pace of the curriculum.

7. Demonstrate a basic understanding of 1 to 1 correspondence when counting

In addition to verbally counting, your child will need to quickly start counting objects. As easy as it sounds, your child may need a little practice with this task.

This can be a very difficult task for a child to develop one to one correspondence. Concept of number can be a very abstract idea for 5 year old minds. If you’ve ever counted with them and noticed that they skip over something in front of them, then you have already experienced this.

This can be taught, and corrected through very simple modeling. Practice counting objects with your child. Point to each object as you count it. You can even move objects as you count them. Establish with your child that the final number you say is the number that represents the total of those objects.

If you can has a very basic concept of number beginning the school year, it will greatly benefit them in tackling the fast paced curriculum.

8.  Know Basic Shapes

You don’t need to dive into complex polygons and geometry, but knowing the basic shapes is very helpful. Mainly square, rectangle, triangle, and circle. Bonus points if they know rhombus, and hexagon. Please do not teach your child that a rhombus is a diamond. Standardized testing in the future won’t think it’s as cute as we do.

9. Identify colors

Again, just the basics. We don’t expect them to identify every color on the Sherman Williams pallete, your basic colors: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, pink, purple, brown, black and white. These are not in the kindergarten curriculum at all, and while good teachers will still find time to review them, they cannot devote much time to something the students are expected to know before started.

10. Be able to complete own personal hygiene tasks

This is another essential step that often gets skipped. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been asked to wipe butts and blow noses. I’ve also literally had parents who expected I would do that for their child.

Even if I was paid enough to wipe buts all day, that’s an issue I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. That opens teachers up to all sorts of liability issues and potential false accusations. We live in a time where lawsuits are served up like fast food, so anything that comes a long with your child’s bodily functions is off limits for teachers.

This means that your child needs to know how to dress and undress themselves. They need to have basic potty training skills including wiping their own bottom and washing their hands. We also appreciate it when you teach them how to hit the toilet.

Now, I’m not going to not button a kid’s pants if they ask, but it does make the the tiniest bit uncomfortably professionally. So please, do your teacher a favor and teach your kids how to zip, button, glue, whatever their clothing needs – just so we don’t have to do it. And for heaven’s sakes, if you know it’s an outfit they struggle with, save it for home, so we’re not spending all day chasing 20 other kids and stopping every hour to unbutton and rebutton Sally’s pants.

Winter clothing is another beast. It’s not fun for anyone, but imagine having to zip up 24 coats and put on 48 mittens before going outside for 25 minutes. Sound fun? That’s another big ole’ NOPE.

Not to mention, there was this one time I literally got a concussion zipping a kids coat up. It was the dead of winter, and little Johnny still couldn’t zip his coat, so I’d crouched down hastily to help him. In a hurry, I hadn’t taken quite enough time to balance myself and when another kid bumped into me I when falling backwards and whacked my head on a table behind me. They had to call my MOM to pick me up and take me to the emergency room. Talk about embarrassing. I lost a little teacher street cred that day.

Yet again, spending the extra hour or two practicing with Jimmy-John pays off in a major way for their future teachers. Pretty, please? I’m asking nicely for teachers everywhere.

11. Sit for a story or lesson for 5-10 minutes

Would you believe that in the first 4 weeks of kindergarten, THE most important thing a kindergarten teacher can teach is routines and procedures?

Big-kid school is an entirely different world for kindergartners. Even ones with preschool experience have seldom encountered situations that require as much structure and rigor as being in school all day.

Not all children have school experience. Many were at home with Mom or Grandma, and while they may have been taught what they need to know, they have learned in an entirely different environment. Kindergarten children are expected to sit and focus for extended periods of time. They have to learn rules for everything from walking in the halls to how to speak in class. It is a lot…and it’s part of kindergarten. It’s going to be a transition period for kids, no matter what.

The one thing you, as a parent can do, is work on building that stamina or patience. When you read to them have them practice sitting and focusing with no interruptions. Give them small tasks like activity sheets to do and let them attempt them independent. With 20+ other children in the room, your child will have to work independently at times.

Little things like practicing these skills can make a huge difference in how quickly and easily the transition goes. The quicker your child adjusts, the quicker thy can learn to master the fast paced academic instruction that’s about to be thrown their way.

12. Be able to follow simple directions

Again, the world your child is about to be thrown into is far different from anything they’ve ever experienced. Picture your kindergarten teacher as a lion tamer. She’s got 20+ lions to tame and provide academic instruction to. So again, structure is essential.

Part of that structure is always giving detailed instructions. In the beginning for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. We model and model and go step by step through everything.

Sit in your chair like this. Wait quietly for your work. When your work arrives pick up your pencil. Hold it like this. Write your name at the top of the sheet. Begin working quietly.

In order to succeed with this structure, a child needs to be able to process these directions and follow them. This again, however, can be a difficult thing for children their age. At 5 and 6 years old, these children are still developing those receptive language skills and therefore following multi-step directions can be difficult for them.

As a parent you can practice this at home with them. Give them simple tasks with basic directions and slowly increase the complexity. Make it fun by playing a game of Simon Says and increasing the difficulty of the tasks by adding to them: ie. Hop on one foot, touch your head, stick out your toungue. Have your child complete an art or craft project that involves many different steps.

These simple things can make a huge difference for your child.

Bonus skills to ensure a headstart.

So these aren’t required by any means, but if you really want to make sure your child is prepared, you can work with them on these skills. It could only help to give them an extra advantage when starting school.

1. Know some/all letter sounds
2. Count to 50+
3. Be able to write some/all upper and lowercase letters.
4. Recognize some high frequency words
5. Know how to tie shoes (your teachers will love you for this!)

The more your child knows entering kindergarten, the quicker they can take off. It can be extremely challenging for some kids to be reading for Christmas. Developmentally, they should be be playing with blocks and house-keeping. But the reality is they are not.

You can grab this checklist I’ve created here. It can be a good reference as you are working on practicing these skills before school starts.

With all that said, I’ve got one super important tip for you that absolutely trumps every other word in this blog post. No matter what…

They will be alright.

Yes. In a perfect world, they’ll enter kindergarten doing these things but the world is not perfect and neither are we. If you’re reading this two weeks before kindergarten starts, and panicking know that it will be okay.

No matter where your child enters kindergarten functioning at, your child’s teacher will teach your child. They will get them there. It is partially due to a responsibility and means of earning a paycheck but mainly because of a secret genetic code of kindergarten teachers.

True kindergarten teachers, see that sweet baby walking through their doors as exactly what he/she is. A sweet baby. A child who has so much to learn in so little time. It’s daunting, but do-able for most and you can just about guarantee she’s just as invested in the success of your child as you are. Even if you’ve drafted the Viola Swamp of kindergarten teachers, she doesn’t want to see them fail because chances are her job is at risk. But, better chances are that your kiddo gets one of the typical kindergarten teachers. Teachers who appreciate this fleeting age and truly enjoy being surrounded by promise and youth. And who loves hugs. Because there are a hundred each day.

Either way, no worries, Mama. You got this.

And know that you won’t be the only one fighting back tears the first morning your baby walks down those long halls. I’ll be right there with you.

Don’t forget to pin this for later!

And don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest, where I’m pinning tons of great preschool activities that are sure to have your child ready for kindergarten!