Is your child heading to preschool? You might be wondering what they need to know. This guide will help you understand and what kids learn in preschool and how you can help them at home.
Preschool can be the first time that a child learns in an educational setting. This is a time of significant change in a kid’s life. Making sure that they’re having fun no matter what they learn will help them to understand that education can be fun rather than stressful. In general, you can expect preschool to be a time of learning the basics. These basics include everything from math to friendship.
Pre-Math
When your child starts preschool, they begin to learn the foundations of math. Usually, this includes understanding and being able to count from 1 to 20. They also need to understand that numbers can correspond to objects by counting things like stones or cars. You can help them at home by making fun activities out of counting, for example, Hopscotch.
Basic Shapes and Colors
Learning about shapes and colors can help with math, art, and language development. They’ll begin to understand how things connect together both in terms of physical shapes and style. Adding in art projects at home can be a great way to get them to sort and play with colors and shapes.
The Alphabet
In preschool, children will learn that letters correspond to sounds and how to make basic words go together. These are all essential for when they learn to read soon in their lives.
Learning the alphabet at home is more than just the ABC song. You can try making up a new song with words that correspond to each letter. Making fun games by using alphabet magnets is another excellent way to get kids involved.
Cooperative Play
In preschool, kids learn to play creatively with each other. This also teaches them to get along and to resolve a conflict. Furthering this at home is easy! You can set play dates and go to the park. If you have more than one child, the process is even more straightforward because they’re already learning it at home. Make sure that anytime a disagreement happens you help them work through it themselves so that they understand consequences and how they should react.
Motor Skills
In preschool children will learn and further develop both are fine and gross motor skills. This can often happen when they’re making crafts with macaroni or bouncing on a trampoline. It’s important for young children to learn these skills so that they can fine-tune their pincher grip and finger strength as well as improve their coordination and dexterity.
Taking your child to a playground can be a great way to improve their gross motor skills. Help them balance on a balance beam or cross the monkey bars. On a rainy day, our open play structure with four slides is another place for kids to climb, balance and burn off energy. If you want to work on their fine motor skills, let them play with smaller toys with your supervision. Arts and crafts are great for this.
Social Independence and Social Skills
There is a very high chance that up until this point your child has spent many of their days with at least one parent. It’s at preschool that they really begin to learn independence from a parent and how to act around other children. This can be especially so for only children whose parents didn’t work before sending them to school.
It’s normal to expect a little bit of dependency on a parent, that’s not a bad thing at all. If you want to work on your child’s Independence, taking them to a safe backyard with another parents child is a great way to observe from a distance while they learn to get along with other children. Also, trade children with your friend for a few hours at a time. This will let you get things done while your child learns to be okay away from you.
Overall, preschool is a beautiful time for a child. It’s their first real step into the educational world, and they learn a great deal in these early years. This is the setup for their education, so make sure that they’re having a lot of fun while learning a lot too.
Preschool at Bodies in Motion
Our preschool in Boise is for ages 3 to 6. We keep our ratio at 8:1 and use a value-based curriculum built on activities, experiences and field trips, so kids move, play and learn together. Families can choose the Morning Class (9 am to 12 pm) or Preschool with Extended Care (7:30 am to 6 pm).
To see it for yourself, schedule a tour on the preschool page or contact us.