Transitional Kindergarten

Standard

How can I support my child?

Explore these play-based activites.

Keeps trying even when something is new or hard

Actively listening to your student is an important part of modeling how to resolve conflicts with peers.

Use these Toolbox Tools  or these Toolbox Hand Gestures to help.

Stays focused during independent activities.

Foundation

How can I support my child?

Try some of these cooperative play activities.

Practices communicating  emotions

• Use this Understanding Feelings document or feelings chart to help identify emotions.
• Read books together.
  • Read-alouds about feelings.

Ideas for encouraging social-emotional support advocacy

Shows kindness towards self and others

Foundation

How can I support my child?

 Reading Tips for Families

• Encourage your child to pretend. Play restaurant, doctor’s office, grocery story.
• During storytime, look through books together and ask open-ended questions about the pictures. 

 Asks questions to seek information

Shares detailed descriptions, opinions, and explanations

Says the first sound of a word with adult support

Letter Sound Video

Orally blends words together with an adult

Two articles about phonics:

• Reading with your child
• The Alphabetic Principle

Makes rhyming sounds or words

 Bert and Ernie rhyming video

Matches some uppercase letter names to printed form

Can produce sounds associated with several letters with adult support

Holds a book and turns the pages in the right direction

PreK On My Way Family Hub

• Password: scout

Storyline Online Screen Actors Guild Read-Alouds

Flyleaf Books (online resource)

Print Our Family Reading Week Chart

After a few readings, has a basic understanding of the main characters or events in a story

After a few readings, has a basic understanding of some facts within informational text

Writes own name nearly correctly

Materials:

• A shallow tray or plate
• Salt, sugar, sand, or flour
• A paintbrush, finger, or Q-tip

Activity:

• Pour a thin layer of salt (or other material) into the tray.
• Show your child a letter (start with ones in their name, or A, B, C)
• Have them write the letter in the salt using their finger or tool. 
• Shake the tray gently to “erase” and try a new letter!

Videos

• Printing Upper and Lowercase letters  
• Proper Pencil Grip Video

Speaks in all settings by taking turns and asking and answering questions

Ask your student to provide evidence for their opinions on various topics, such as extra recess or the cafeteria's lunch options.

Tells about the main points and details from different books and multimedia for their grade level

Ask your student to draw pictures related to a book they have read or a show they have watched and then describe their drawings.

Make up a story using a wordless book.

Ask your student to draw a picture to give to a family member. Have them use kid spelling to label their picture.

Ask your child what they would like to do as a family. Prompt them to come up with reasons why each family member would enjoy the activity.

Recognizes their role in the community, values others, and practices negotiation and compromise

Let your child choose a weekend activity, like going to the park.

If family members have different ideas, guide your child through the simple negotiation: 

• “Grandma wants to go to the farmers market, and you want to go to the playground. What if we do both? We can visit the farmers market and then go to the park across the street?"

Counts 10 or more objects

Use any object at home (blocks, pennies etc.).

• Put 3 objects on a plate.
• Ask, "How many do you have?
• Add one more object and ask, "Now how many?"
• Take one object away. Ask, "Now how many?"

• Play with magnetic numbers or identify numbers in books.
• Point out the digits and talk about them. 

Use any object at home (pennies, paper clips, pebbles, etc)

• Practice counting 5 objects (touching each object as they say the number)

• Once they can count 5, practice the same activity to 10, and then 20

Materials: A small pile of clean laundry
Activity: Invite your child to help sort the laundry.
Say: “Let’s put things that are the same together.”
Guide them to sort by:

• Type (socks with socks, shirts with shirts)
• Color (all blue things together)
• Size (big towels vs. small towels)

Materials: Small toys or household items like cars, spoons, buttons.
Activity: Start a simple pattern using two types of objects, like:

• car, block, car, block…
• red sock, blue sock, red sock blue sock…

Ask your child:

• “What comes next?”
• “Can you make your own pattern?”

Try more complex patterns as they begin to understand. 

• Car, car, block, car, car, block…
• Bonus: Use snack time or nature walks (leaf, rock. leaf rock) to spot or create patterns in the real world!

Go on a shape hunt at home! 

Walk around the house and look for objects that match basic shapes:

• Circle: clock, plate, lid
• Square: napkin, tile, coaster
• Rectangle: book, door, phone
• Triangle: pizza slice, hanger corner, folded napkin

• “It’s under something.”
• “It’s next to the couch.”
• “It’s above your backpack.”

• A small bag or basket (optional)
• Paper and crayons (optional)

• Go for a short walk outside. 
• Encourage your child to use their senses:
  • See: “What colors do you see?”
  • Hear: “Can you hear birds or cars?”
  • Touch: “How does this leaf feel?”
  • Smell: “ Can you smell the flowers or grass?”

• A flashlight
• A blank wall or dark room
• Toys or household objects (hands, paper cutouts, blocks)

• Turn off the lights and turn on the flashlight. 
• Shine the light on different objects to create shadows on the wall. 
• Encourage your child to move the objects closer or farther from the light and observe what happens. 

• “What do you notice?” 
• “What happens when we move it?”
• “Can you make a big shadow? A small one?”

• Pots, pans, plastic containers
• Wooden spoons, metal spoons, spatulas
• Optional: rice or beans in sealed containers for shakers

• Set out a few safe kitchen items and “instruments.”
• Let your child tap, shake, and scrape to explore different sounds. 
• Try making a rhythm or pattern together. 

• “Which one is loud?”
• “Which one makes a soft sound?”
• “What happens if you tap it gently? What if you tap it hard?”

Materials:

• A small cup 
• Soil
• A seed
• Water
• Sunny windowsill

Activity:

• Help your child fill the cup with soil and plant the seed. 
• Water it gently and place it in a sunny spot. 
• Observe it together each day. 

Ask: 

• “What do you notice today?”
• “What does the plant need to grow?”
• “Where do you think plants like to live?”

Optional: Draw or take pictures of the plant as it grows. 

Explores Earth materials, the sky, and weather, and is beginning to understand how people affect the environment

Materials:

• Paper and crayons

Activity:

• Draw boxes for the seven days of the week on the paper.
• Choose a symbol for each type of weather that might occur that week.
• Make a key for your child at the bottom of the weather graph (e.g., sun, clouds, rain)
• Observe the weather every day and have your child draw the icon for the corresponding weather of the day in each box.

At the end of the week, ask:

• “Which kind of weather happened the most this week?”
• “Can you tell me what the weather was like on (a specific day)?”
• “What kind of weather do you like best? Why?”

• Pillows, tape, or toys to mark a path
• Open space indoors or outdoors

Activity:

• Set up a simple obstacle course with things to walk around, step over, or balance on.
• Invite your child to move through the course using animal walks:
  • Bear walk (hands and feet on the ground)
  • Crab walk (belly up, walking backward)
  • Flamingo pose (stand on one foot for a few seconds)
  • Slow turtle walk (walk slowly and carefully)
• Encourage them to hold still like a statue between movements or balance on one foot at different points. 

Ask:

• “Can you stay still like you’re frozen?”
• “Which animal walk is the hardest?”
• “How long can you balance on one foot? Let’s count!”

Materials:

• A sheet of stickers (a variety of shapes or themes)
• Paper or a notebook

Optional: tweezers or clothespins for extra challenge
Activity:

• Invite your child to peel stickers off the sheet and place them on paper. 

Add a sorting challenge:

• “Can you put all the animal stickers on one side?”
• For extra fine motor practice, let them use tweezers or clothespins to pick up and place the stickers.