The kindergarten year is a crucial time during your child’s early development. The right kindergarten setting provides a fundamental academic skill set that will be the foundation to all of your child’s future learning.
Note: In addition to all the benefits listed below, for children entering kindergarten who have excelled in a pre-school, our school offers a unique ability to meet your child’s advanced academic needs (See Article: “The Desmond T. Doss Special Program for Upcoming Kindergarteners Who Excelled in Preschool).
So what should you as a parent expect as your child enters kindergarten?
Kindergarten allows your child to develop his or her early academic skills. In addition, kindergarten also provides a year for your child to get used to being in school. Your child will learn how to interact with other children socially. Your child will also learn how to submit to and work with an authority figure. In addition, he or she will discover the freedom that comes in a structured environment, allowing your kindergartener to thrive.
Kindergarten helps your child develop a routine. Your child will learn how to follow guidelines, while still seeing their independent creativity and gifts shine through. Your child will learn how to follow specific rules for different subjects they are learning, as well as rules for the classroom and the playground. This will allow your child to learn how to be accountable to a new authority figure, rather than just to Mom and Dad.
In Kindergarten, you can expect that your child’s understanding of letters, numbers, words and sounds will grow by leaps and bounds. At Desmond T. Doss Christian Academy, our Kindergarten students typically learn such skills as:
• counting and understanding numbers to 100 (and beyond for many students)
• the sound that each letter makes and how to blend sounds to make words
• recognizing and writing all of the capital and lower case letters of the alphabet
• skip counting (ie. counting by 5’s and 10’s) and other pattern counting
• recognizing all numbers between 1 and 100
• reading simple books
• recognizing many sight words
By the end of the year, your kindergarten student will likely have strongly developed fine motor skills, especially in writing. Your child will know how to hold a pencil correctly, how to write his or her name and many other words, and how to use his or her pen skills to be expressive.
Your child will memorize other personal information facts about himself or herself, including his or her address, siblings’ names and ages, and more.
Your kindergartener will also begin learning math skills, such as basic addition and subtraction and word problems. Your child will learn about all of the coins and the dollar bill, as well as how to count change. Your child will also be taught how to read a calendar, the days of the week, the months of the year, and the four seasons.
In addition, your child will also learn science through stories and through simple science experiments to help them visually understand what they are learning. Also, they will learn about important historical figures and facts. These social studies allow your child to expand his or her world, learning that the world is not limited to himself or herself and his or her family.
At Desmond T. Doss Christian Academy, your child will also learn about God through songs, Bible lessons, art activities, and more. He or she will learn about being a special creation of God with unique qualities and abilities to use to help others and to honor God.
The ultimate goal is to give your child a solid foundation of understanding what God has created him or her to be and to allow your child to see how much they can achieve. In this regard Christian education is priceless!
We pray that you will consider placing your kindergartener in Desmond T. Doss Christian Academy. Please feel free to use our online contact form or call 434-237-1899 to get more information today.