kindergarten readiness
Transitioning from Pre-School into Kindergarten
Your child is entering Kindergarten in the fall. But is he really prepared for the big transition?
The big day is almost here – your child is making the transition from pre-school into Kindergarten in the fall. As a parent, this can be both an exciting and emotional time, but for the child it is a major shift in routine, environment and academic expectations. Is your child really prepared? Common Core Standards have raised the academic bar, even at the Kindergarten level, but it is a child’s ability to attune, adapt, anticipate and efficiently process information, that is critical to a successful transition from the pre-school environment.
Typically, in pre-school a child may be given a single level task, that when autonomously completed, frees the child to go off and play. In contrast, as a Kindergartener a child may be asked to remain with an activity for a longer period of time, requiring auditory attention to both learn and follow an external plan. The activity may involve a series of directions that require the child to adjust his perspective or body multiple times, while self-regulating his emotions and actions. Since more time is spent in Kindergarten with whole-class, teacher-led instruction, a child must have the ability to think as a “we”; to attend and adjust to a group activity that requires social collaboration such as discussions about a story being told, its characters, settings and how they can relate to the story.
Social Brain Building Skills
The new Kindergartener will now have to attune to surroundings and peers, a shift from the more self-attuned pre-school positioning. The child must be able to walk into a situation and be able to observe and listen, then perceive what is expected of them. For example: the child walks into a classroom where other children are sitting and drawing. The child can then conclude that he/she is expected to sit and draw. This awareness, or metacognition, will keep the child from getting distracted and disorganized, helping to facilitate the efficacy of each learning experience. Auditory processing allows the child to attune to teacher directions and turn language into actions in order to follow new routines or complete a task. Repetition established by the kindergarten teacher will support this learning curve throughout the kinder year.
The ability to think as a “we” and follow directions, listen, attend, modify behavior and anticipate change, are the building blocks of executive function, a set of processes, or neurologically-based skills, that all have to do with managing oneself (mental control and self-regulation) and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal. A solid foundation of Executive Function skills is imperative to all future learning.
Understanding Letters and Numbers
All of these so-called “soft skills” are necessary for the Kindergartener to achieve success in the development of the “hard skills” such as the acquisition of the understanding of letters and numbers. Kindergarteners are expected to recognize the letters of the alphabet, both in upper and lower cases when they enter kindergarten. They need to understand the difference between sounds, letters and words and that words have meaning and make up sentences. They must know number formation so they can begin the process of learning how to break out numbers.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills such as holding and using a pencil/crayon/marker/ and scissors, are required as children, over the course of the school year, will need to be able to express their thoughts, ideas and experiences through drawing and writing.
How to Prepare Your Child for the Transition from Pre-School into Kindergarten
It is important to note that approximately 1 in 5 children experience one or more challenges with behavior, communication, body movement and learning. While these challenges are common, each child’s root issues can be vastly different. If your child is struggling in any of these areas as the transition to Kindergarten approaches, it would be wise to seek out a consultation or assessment with a pediatric therapist who can get to the root issue and facilitate a program of occupational, speech/language, educational or multi-disciplinary therapy.
Kindergarten Enrichment Camp is fun way to help prepare children over the summer for the new challenges of Kindergarten. This type of program helps children develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine, developing social-emotional skills, being mindful of themselves and others and making new friends.
Looking Back on Kindergarten Camp Summer 2018
Kindergarten Enrichment Camp – Summer 2018 – A Look Back
The fall school term is fully under way, and here at CSC, we’re thinking back with smiles on our faces, about the wonderful children we shared our summer with, that are now officially Kindergarteners!
We’re smiling remembering all the fun we had, but also because we know that after a few weeks at Summer Kindergarten Enrichment Camp, these little bundles of energy are prepared and ready to take on the challenge of a new environment, new adults, new peers and new experiences.
The Kindergarten setting requires young students to spend more time sitting, listening, and following direction. They need more refined motor skills to create letters and numbers. They need to be able to integrate sensory input and self-regulate and self-monitor in order to respond appropriately to changes in the physical environment of the classroom as well as the social landscape of the classroom and playground. Summer K-Camp gave our little pre-Kindergarteners the tools they need to meet all these challenges successfully.
Hanging out in our large sensory gym, campers, using mindfulness as a platform, engaged in myriad positive social learning experiences, built phonological awareness, and began to build their desire for lifelong learning. Mindfulness practices during circle time and moments of stillness, taught campers to pause and recognize sensations, impulses and the need to think and plan. They learned about positive self-talk, and how to build a loving relationship with their inner selves, a critical first step to developing successful social relationships with others.
Using the methodology of “whole-body” listening and the “Zones of Regulation”, campers fostered the self-awareness needed to be social and open, and to be able to ask for help and verbalize needs and experiences. Working these social-emotional “muscles” resulted in our campers gaining strength in social and educational learning, allowing it to happen organically and with meaning. Working those muscles also required “flexibility” in thinking during activity transitions, like from the fully active gym to table-top time, which required children to attend and be more on task.
Our camp facilitators loved seeing the kiddos learn while they played with letters and sounds. Who doesn’t love to hear little voices boisterously “moooooo-ing” like cows to match the sound with the letter? Every year, it seems, the sensory activity the kids like the most is using their fingers to form letters and free form shapes on the “shaving cream table”. Messy, but fun!
Like any summer camp experience, each child took away his/her own set of “nuggets” of fun and learning, but we know that all of them left with a tool box full of skills that will help them have the best start possible to their academic career.
Learn more about Kindergarten Enrichment Camp at Child Success Center.
Is Your Child Ready to Transition to Kindergarten Activities?
Is your pre-school age child making the transition to Kindergarten in the fall?
As a parent, this can be both an exciting and emotional time, but for the child making the transition to kindergarten it is a major shift in routine, environment and academic expectations. Common Core Standards have raised the academic bar, even at the Kindergarten level. But it is a child’s ability to attune, adapt, anticipate and efficiently process information, that is critical to a successful transition from the pre-school environment.
In pre-school a child may be given a single level task that when autonomously completed frees the child to go off and play. In contrast, as a Kindergartener a child may be asked to remain with an activity for a longer period of time, requiring auditory attention to both learn and follow an external plan. The activity may involve a series of directions that require the child to adjust his perspective or body multiple times, while self-regulating his emotions and actions. Since more time is spent in Kindergarten with whole-class, teacher-led instruction, a child must have the ability to think as a “we”, to attend and adjust to a group activity that requires social collaboration such as discussions about a story being told, its characters, settings and how they can relate to the story.
As a Kindergartener, a child will now have to attune herself to her surroundings and peers, a shift from the more self-attuned pre-school positioning. The child must be able to walk into a situation and be able to observe and listen then perceive what is expected of them. For example: a child walks into a classroom where other children are sitting and drawing. The child can then conclude that she is expected to sit and draw. This awareness, or metacognition, will keep the child from getting distracted and disorganized, helping to facilitate the efficacy of each learning experience. Auditory processing allows the child to attune to teacher directions and turn language into actions in order to follow new routines or complete a task. Repetition established by the kindergarten teacher will support this learning curve throughout the kinder year.
The ability to think as a “we” and follow directions, listen, attend, modify behavior and anticipate change, are the building blocks of executive functioning, a set of processes, or neurologically-based skills, that all have to do with managing oneself (mental control and self-regulation) and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal. A solid foundation of Executive Function skills is imperative to all future learning.
All of these so-called “soft skills” are necessary for the Kindergartener to achieve success in the development of the “hard skills” such as the acquisition of the understanding of letters and numbers. Kindergarteners are expected to recognize the letters of the alphabet, both in upper and lower cases. They need to understand the difference between sounds, letters and words, and that words have meaning and make up sentences. They must know number formation so they can begin the process of learning how to break out numbers.
Fine motor skills such as holding and using a pencil/crayon/marker/ and scissors, are required as children, over the course of the school year, will need to be able to express their thoughts, ideas and experiences through drawing and writing.
It is important to note that approximately 1 in 5 children experience one or more challenges with behavior, communication, body movement and learning. While these challenges are common, each child’s root issues can be vastly different. If your child is struggling in any of these areas as the transition to Kindergarten approaches, it would be wise to seek out a consultation or assessment with a pediatric therapist who can get to the root issue and facilitate a program of occupational, speech/language, educational or multi-disciplinary therapy.
Friendship Club – Practice Social Skills in a Group Setting
Friendship Club groups at Child Success Center are developmentally based and designed to give children an opportunity to practice social interactions with therapeutic intervention and coaching.
For some children, friendships are difficult to make- and even harder to maintain. Friendship Club groups are developmentally based and designed to give children an opportunity to practice successful social interactions with therapeutic staff intervention and coaching. Friendship Club uses positive reinforcement to help children stay motivated to join a group plan, be flexible with their ideas, and stick with social situations that are challenging. Once a child has practice with positive social interactions, their confidence builds. Children are able to join groups easier, transition to and from activities, share their feelings effectively, and problem solve with their friends in order to create meaningful and long lasting friendships. We use the Social Thinking® (Attributed to Michelle Garcia Winner as creator of the Social Thinking Methodology) curriculum to support social skills concepts, role play, engage in group games, and use art projects to facilitate social interaction. We use unstructured play in order to create scenarios similar to those children encounter at school, parties, and play dates in order to socially coach children through big feelings and conflicts.
The goal of Friendship Club is for children to increase their confidence and positive behavior skills to generalize to the home and school setting. Rome was not built in a day, and the same goes for children’s social skills. In this social skills based program, children benefit from being given the opportunity to practice effective communication in a supportive environment. Educating the adults in the child’s life, and using the same social vocabulary in group, at home, and at school helps generalize the desired behavior changes and social interactions. Friendship Club members are physically active and challenged in a sensory gym environment, while being given a social skills curriculum that addresses both social needs and behaviors that may impede successful peer relationships.
It is the job of childhood to learn how to play and interact successfully. Friendship Club uses external motivation, a token economy system, to grow and learn positive social skills. Members “earn” Friendship Tokens they can use to “shop” in our prize bin at the end of each session. Over time, the need for external motivation decreases as the new habits increase and social reciprocity is achieved.
Summer is an excellent time to help foster the social growth of your child, especially for those moving from a pre-school to Kindergarten, or from Kindergarten to First Grade. The Child Success Center offers Friendship Club on weekends through the summer to help children and families stay on track with their social learning.
Learn more about Summer Learning Academy and Friendship Club on our website.
This program, including its teacher or leader, is not affiliated with, nor has it been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Michelle Garcia Winner and Think Social Publishing, Inc.
What is a Kindergarten Readiness Program?
A Kindergarten Readiness Program is designed, with the individual child in mind, to best prepare him to successfully enter school and joyfully manage the “job of Kindergarten”.
Each summer Child Success Center has the pleasure of helping children acquire skills to manage their “job of childhood” through our Summer K-Camp (Kindergarten Readiness Program). K-Camp is the cornerstone of our Summer Learning Academy. Children entering kindergarten in the fall are facilitated by a learning specialist, who utilizes a curriculum designed by a team of occupational, speech and language, and educational therapists and psychologists. This unique curriculum has been carefully honed over the 7 years CSC has offered K-camp. It addresses each child’s unique strengths and stretches as they relate to kindergarten readiness and provides each child the opportunity to strengthen the foundations needed to successfully enter school and joyfully manage the “job of Kindergarten”.
Our learning specialists understand how critical it is that the foundation of development and learning be well integrated and efficient over the first 6 years of life. They come to K-Camp with an intimate understanding of each child’s learning styles. Our team gathers a history and is able to adapt the curriculum to create the “just right challenge” for each learner. More evolved reading, writing, spelling and math skills rely upon foundational attention memory, listening, language, visual and motor processing. Camp provides opportunity to grow in these areas as well as those of social learning, academic learning, gross and fine motor skill development, verbal communication, imagination and creativity, and the exploration of personal interests.
For children that have not attained pre-school level foundational skills such as the ability to wait, focus, attend, follow direction, easily adjust to new surroundings, collaborate, cooperatively negotiate in play, or are unable to grasp the relationship between sounds and symbols, K-Camp provides a fun, engaging and grounded environment where this foundational building process can occur via positive, successful social learning experiences.
Through a social learning lens, mindfulness-based practices allow the camper to explore group dynamics, practice transitions and develop skills to monitor changes in the environment. Skills are added to their toolbox for attending, being present and listening with their whole body, while creating a foundation for emotional balance.
CSC K-Camp is open to all children entering Kindergarten in the Fall, including those who have been in a preschool setting that has not exposed them to academic learning opportunities, those who have struggled with the job of preschool and those entering a new school setting which can be anxiety producing. In addition to preparing kids for a successful transition, K-Camp is a great time for socializing and making new friends.
The Child Success Center Kindergarten Readiness Program (K-Camp) has benefited many children over the past 7 years and their parents have been delighted with the results….
“I can’t say enough about K-Camp. My daughter attended K-Camp for two weeks and it gave her exposure to early literacy and numeracy, as well as provided a structured day that really prepared her for the kindergarten transition. As a parent, it gave me peace of mind that she would be ready to take the next steps.”
“My son had the best week at the Kindergarten Readiness Camp. He is starting Kindergarten in September after completing a year of TK so it was the perfect refresher midway through summer. The camp focused on academics but also social interaction, self-regulating, transitioning and much more. My son said they played fun games and he loved taking breaks and playing in the gym. For a boy who doesn’t love doing table work he said it was the best camp! I could not be happier.”
Additional information about Kindergarten Readiness Programs
Summer K-Camp (Kindergarten Readiness Program) at Child Success Center
Is Kindergarten Camp a Fit For Your Child?
Is Kindergarten Camp a Fit For Your Child?
Kindergarten Camp will help your child discover his love for learning!
Kindergarten Camp is for any child that has one (1) of the following needs:
- Support in the transition to kindergarten
- Skills when adapting to a new environment
- Creation of meaning and enjoyment while learning
- Development of handwriting and fine motor activities
- Identification of phonological awareness and early reading processes
- Focus on academics while being at a developmental preschool
By taking an educational therapy approach and incorporating research-based programs, the Child Success Center Kindergarten Enrichment Camp offers your child a unique, summer learning experience, while having great fun in our state-of-the-art sensory motor gym in Los Angeles, California.
K-CAMP is an individualized experience, with highly trained learning specialists looking at the “whole child” while meeting the specific needs of each child. Campers will work with a learning specialist to explore their learning journey. During the K-CAMP learning adventure, each child will be helped to develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine and being socially involved. Our approach allows visual and auditory integration, providing the child with a thorough learning experience and understanding from many areas of the brain.
K-CAMP provides a balance of educational, classroom-like experiences and positive social development opportunities. Our team utilizes the hugely effective Social Thinking® (Attributed to Michelle Garcia Winner as creator of the Social Thinking Methodology) curriculum that builds the body & brain awareness that is supportive to learning exploration. Our gymnasium provides a fun, interactive and comfortable learning environment for children. With success comes the joy of seeing your child adapt to new circumstances, thrive socially, develop the necessary skills to succeed in school and learn effectively and happily.
K-CAMP will ignite your child’s learning journey whether the goal is remediation of skills and/or enrichment, all while having great summer fun!
Much of the CSC Kindergarten Camp program is based on the following areas of learning and acquisition of skills.
- Social Thinking® & Whole-Body Listening – develops skills in focusing, listening, auditory cohesion and attending to the body in group and learning situations. Addressing whole-body listening can allow the child to understand the role of their brain in an array of experiences. (this is incorporated in all learning endeavors)
- Auditory Discrimination – increases the understanding and ability to discern between the differences in sounds. Sounds make up words which make up sentences and passages. Discrimination is important in all areas of learning- reading, writing and visual/auditory integration. Understanding discrimination can often bring about comfort and confidence in the reading process.
- Auditory Memory – increases ability to develop phonemes, words and sentences and retain and recall information that is presented orally.
- Phonological Skills – evolve through learning sounds and developing phonological awareness through sound-symbol relationship, blending and segmentation, and incorporating visual, auditory and motion into the learning process.
- Handwriting – includes letter and number formation, sequencing, and development of healthy, adaptive handwriting practices.
EXPECTATIONS OF SCHOOLS
Common Core Standards have clearly upped the stakes when it comes to what skills your child will need to have in his academic and social tool belt upon entering Kindergarten. The expectations for these young children are high and include age appropriate proficiency in reading, writing, listening and collaboration. The CSC Kindergarten Camp program addresses all of these areas while maintaining a fun and stress-free environment your child will look forward to each day.
This program, including its teacher or leader, is not affiliated with, nor has it been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Michelle Garcia Winner and Think Social Publishing, Inc.
Kindergarten Readiness Summer Camp 2015
Is your pre-schooler ready for Kindergarten in the Fall? Child Success Center is happy to announce our 6th consecutive summer of Kindergarten Readiness Camp!
While you might not even be thinking about summer vacation yet, it is definitely the time to start asking yourself if your pre-schooler will be ready for the move up to Kindergarten in the Fall. There’s more to it than you might imagine. Many parents are under the impression that Kindergarten is somewhat akin to preschool and that significant academics really don’t kick in until 1st or 2nd grade, but in newer times that is far from reality.
In recent years, California Kindergarten curriculum has shifted to become far more academically skewed than in past decades and now more than ever, it’s very important to have all children properly prepared for these greater new challenges. To successfully excel in their new setting, children must achieve and master certain educational and social skills to adequately adapt and grow in a more accountable and often faster paced setting.
Additionally, there are many aspects of kindergarten that will be new for your child. The school is bigger, there is more time sitting at a table, more focus on letters and numbers, time spent learning handwriting skills, more time listening and a lot more structure. The days are longer and there is often more independence required.
Parents might consider seeking counsel or advice from teachers or experts and possibly even have an evaluation for their child to ensure that educational and social skill development is on track for entry into Kindergarten in the fall. To help those who may need additional support, Child Success Center is happy to announce our 6th consecutive summer of Kindergarten Readiness Camp. This camp is designed to not only teach and prepare little ones, but also provide tons of fun while they’re learning.
Presented as individual weekly camps or a 2-week session, campers, in small groups of up to 8 children, will spend over 20 hours involved in activities designed to help them develop the foundational learning needed to feel confident entering Kindergarten. The program will help children develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine and making new friends. The huge gymnasium at Child Success Center will be turned into a summer fun learning camp with the aim of turning “learning” into “play”. The camp will feature swings, a trampoline, climbing wall and monkey bars, which will take children on an adventure and build up their kindergarten readiness skills. The program will also feature art, music and science activities that will inspire creative interests and will offer hands-on fun through touching, exploring and games.
Parents can enroll their children in a single weekly program, but enrollment in two or three week sessions will build stronger, lasting skills. Also, as a bonus, multiple week enrollees and those who bring a friend may be eligible for special discounts, so be sure to inquire when you call.
Each Week-long Session Will Teach Your Child To:
- Recognize letters and match them with a name and sound
- Master holding a pencil, marker or crayon
- Develop attention and listening skills
- Socialize and communicate
- Enjoy learning
DATES: Dates: Session 1: July 27 – July 31, 2015
Session 2: August 3 – Aug 7, 2015
Session 3: August 10 – August 14, 2015
TIMES: 8:45AM – 1 PM, Monday through Friday
AGE: Starting Kindergarten in the Fall
ENROLLMENT: Call the Child Success Center on 310.899.9597 or email: officemanager@childsuccesscenter.com
COST: Full Fee is $574 per week.
DISCOUNTS:
- Early Bird Discount: $495.00 per week, if registration and payment are received by Friday March 15, 2015.
- Multiple week discounts are available. Call for details.
- Discounts are also available if you bring along a sibling or friend. Call for details.
