What are the characteristics of a high-quality kindergarten classroom? What can parents expect to see in the curriculum? How can parents continue homeschooling? In short what do children learn in kindergarten?
The answer is that kindergarten provides the cornerstones of physical social and emotional development as well as the foundational knowledge of language literacy thinking and cognitive skills. Equally important it provides a bridge from homeschooling or preschool to more traditional education. In the classroom children must interact with the teacher develop a set of rules and learn from each other.
Learning in Kindergarten
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Primer a high-quality kindergarten should address learning in the following categories:
- physical development: This is the development of gross motor skills meaning the movement of arms and legs as well as fine motor skills or the use of hands and fingers. Playing outdoors and doing physical activity as a class address the former. Puzzles and other classroom activities address the latter.
- Social development: This is how children interact with others including cooperation making friends resolving disputes and other skills. Many aspects of classroom activities will be aimed at developing these skills and helping children get along with each other.
- Emotional development: This helps children understand and manage their own feelings. “Teachers help children identify conversations and express their emotions and express concern for others,” the association wrote. “They also support children’s development. Self-regulation – being able to manage one’s own feelings and behavior. “
- Language and Literacy: This develops communication through reading writing talking and listening. Literacy is the main focus of early learning especially in kindergarten because these skills are so important. Students learn to read so they can read for later grades.
- thinking and cognitive abilities: This encourages students to investigate observe ask questions and solve problems. “Teachers help children plan what they are going to do encourage children to discuss and think about ideas more deeply and involve children in making decisions” The association wrote.
Subjects such as math reading writing science social studies and art are also offered in quality kindergartens you can find energy and activity in a healthy kindergarten classroom that engages children with both learning materials and promote each other in all aspects of development.
In kindergarten what’s important but you don’t always see is that interesting learning is happening.
When kids sit at their desks all day doing worksheets and stuff like that it doesn’t really correlate with what we know about the brain and what kids brain learning.
How Parents Can Help
According to education experts parents can do a lot to help kindergarten-age children develop in all of these categories, Parent involvement is key.
Skills such as persistence and stamina are essential for children to solve basic tasks of spoken vocabulary and number sense, Parents can play a huge role in encouraging children to think and explore.
Here are some things parents can do to help kindergarteners learn:
- Encourage exploration: Education experts say daily activities may be the primary opportunity for kindergarten-age children to learn everything from cognitive skills to literacy. An example is a simple trip to the grocery store.
- Talking about the difference between vegetables Talking about the color of the produce Talking about how much you need to help them understand the cost of things – all these everyday moments are such important learning pieces when they go to school.
- Have a conversation: It can be very rewarding to take the time to have full conversations with children and explain what’s going on in their home whether it’s cooking a meal or watering the garden.
- Read: Few things improve literacy more than reading for and with children. It’s always worth the time to pick out a large collection of engaging books at home and read them together.
- Reading to children is always beneficial: It doesn’t matter how old you are it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it. If you only have 15 minutes a day those 15 minutes of reading time are invaluable to your child.
- Develop everyday skills: Anything that requires thinking and cognitive skills can help children learn. “To enhance learning in kindergarten I would consider anything that promotes the development of executive function in the brain. So like any Develop the ability to think critically problem-solve multi-task organize plan or analyze.
- Physical exercise is encouraged: There are many opportunities to develop motor skills but experts also say physical activity can be combined with reading and other subjects to make learning more fun and rewarding. For example after listening to an adult read a story children can draw pictures or act out been read.