Getting Ready for Kindergarten

Beginning Kindergarten is an exciting time! At the Greater Essex County District School Board, our staff is committed to ensuring that your child feels welcome. Find out how you can get involved in your child's school and support them through their learning.

How can I prepare my child for Kindergarten?

You can help prepare your child for Kindergarten in a variety of ways. One way to get your child excited about school, is to talk about the fun they will have and all the new friends they will meet. You can even try driving or walking past the school or looking around the playground so that your child becomes familiar with the school environment.

Here are some skills that you can practice with your child before they start school:

  • Say their first and last name. 
  • Walk to school or the bus stop
  • Enjoy having books read to them and ask questions about the story. 
  • Practice putting on and taking off shoes, sweaters, and jackets. 
  • Look for letters, numbers, and words around them.  
  • Sing along and move with a song. 
  • Act out their favourite story or movie. 
  • Paint, draw pictures or create art with a variety of materials. 
  • Play with other children. 
  • Explore outdoors.
  • Play games with their family. 
  • Practice opening snack and drink containers. 
  • Know and let an adult know when they need to use the washroom. 
  • Count and sort lots of things (toys, crayons, socks, etc.) 
  • Visit the EarlyON centre nearest you. For information visit the website. 
Mom tying daughter's shoe

Schedule medical check-ups

It is important to prepare your child for Kindergarten by scheduling medical check-ups before the first day of school. Taking the time to visit your health care professionals will ensure a great start to school.

Hearing

Having your child's hearing checked by your doctor is an important step in preparing your child for school. If your doctor detects any concerns, they may recommend further screening. Visit the Province of Ontario to learn more about infant hearing programs and screenings.

Speech

As children grow and develop, so does their need to communicate. When it is time to begin school, communication skills are essential to make friends, learn new things, and start to learn how to read and write.

If you have questions about your child's speech and language, contact Talk 2 Me, a local speech and language program for Windsor and Essex County. The GECDSB also offers speech-language pathology services for our students.

Visit the Province of Ontario to learn more about speech and language development.

Vision

We recommend that you book an appointment with an optometrist before the first day of school. Learn about the Province of Ontario's Blind-Low Vision Early Intervention Program to discover how you can monitor your child's visual development.

Children in Junior Kindergarten are eligible to participate in the Eye See...Eye Learn program. All you need to do is get an eye exam from a participating optometrist. If your child requires glasses, they will receive a complimentary pair.

Learning expectations

In Kindergarten, we focus on four main learning frames to support your child's development. This approach aligns with the way learning naturally occurs and focuses on aspects of learning that are critical to child development.

Watch our Kindergarten program video to learn more about the four frames of learning.

Problem solving and innovating

This area includes learning and development in relation to:

  • Exploring the world through natural curiosity, in ways that engage the mind, senses and body
  • Making meaning of their world by asking questions, testing theories, problem solving and engaging in creative and analytical thinking
  • The innovative ways of thinking about and doing things that happen naturally with an active curiosity

This learning consists of collaborative problem solving and bringing new ideas to relationships with others.

Belonging and contributing

This area includes learning and development in relation to:

  • Their sense of connectedness to others
  • Their relationships with others, and their contributions as part of a group, community and the natural world
  • Their understanding of relationships and community and the ways they can contribute to the world around them

This learning includes the development of attributes and attitudes that inform citizenship through their sense of personal connectedness to various communities.

Self-regulation and well-being

This area includes learning and development in relation to:

  • Their own thinking and feelings
  • Respect for the ways in which others may think differently
  • Regulating their emotions, adapting to distractions and assessing consequences of actions in a way that enables them to engage in learning
  • Their physical and mental health and wellness

Children will learn to focus, to respect themselves and others, and to promote well-being in themselves and others.

Demonstrating literacy and mathematics behaviours

This area includes learning and development with respect to:

  • Communicating feelings through gestures, movements, words, symbols and representations
  • Literacy behaviours, seen through the ways they use language, images and materials to express and think critically about ideas and emotions
  • Learning to listen and speak, view and represent and begin to read and write
  • Using mathematics concepts during play and accessing, managing, creating and evaluating information
  • An active engagement in learning and a developing love of learning

Children will learn to develop the ability to think critically, to understand and respect different perspectives and to process a variety of information