30 Blogs About Kindergarten Readiness

One of childhood’s major milestones is starting kindergarten. If you opted to forgo formal preschool in the interest of keeping your child at home for one last year, then his first year of school will also be his first year of experience with leaving home, a classroom environment and interacting with large groups of his peers. Thanks to the plethora of parenting and childcare blogs on the Internet, figuring out how to prepare your little one for his foray into the world of “big kid” school is as simple as clicking the mouse.

Entry Requirements
While the particular entry requirements of each kindergarten will vary from state to state and even from one school district to the next, there are some things that are so common as to be considered almost universal. These five blogs cover the typical entry requirements, and how you can make sure that you’re on the right track.

• About Those ‘Kindergarten-Entry Assessments’ in Race to the Top
• Kindergarten and Transitional Early Entry Kindergarten-What Does it all Mean?
• A Parent Primer For Kindergarten
• Paving the Way to Kindergarten for Young Children with Disabilities
• Kindergarten Readiness article via MiAEYC

Vaccinations
Theories that vaccines cause everything from autism to asthma have spurred a growing number of new parents to eschew vaccines altogether. While this trendy new practice is gathering steam, many of these parents find themselves in an unforeseen pickle when their child’s kindergarten requires vaccination records. These five blogs handle the subject of vaccinations and kindergarten enrollment.

• When People Decide Not to Vaccinate Their Children, I Take it Personally
• The Vaccine Debate
• Seeking, and Resisting, Vaccines
• Are Immunizations Important?
• You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it Too: Thoughts on Refusing Vaccines

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HeliumWaldorf techniques for mastering math facts with body movements that any teacher can use

Kathy's websites:
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http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/237923/Kathy_stemke_dancekam.html
http://kathystemke.weebly.com

S is for Scuba Diving: Movement Exploration

Movement is indicated by bold type. Play a CD of crashing waves as you act out this story. Remember to give the children enough time to explore each movement.

We slip into our swimsuits, slide our sunglasses on, and spray sun block all over our skin. We sail out to sea in our sailboat.

See the seagulls soaring high in the sky. We sling some shrimp for the birds to swallow.

Now we squeeze into our scuba stuff and spring off the ship. We splish and splash on the surface.

We submerge. We search for some shells. Scoop the shells up, and stack them in the sack.

We scout out a deep dark cave. We switch on our lights. We see the seahorses. They’re hungry. We shovel the seaweed to feed them.

Outside the cave we serve the fish some seaweed too. We stroke the fish as they scoot by. We snap lots of pictures.

Oh, no! We spot a shark. We swim and scatter as fast as we can. But the shark keeps steering himself towards us. Everyone stops. We shake and swerve out of his way. We spin around and see a friendly sand shark. He won’t hurt us.

We signal that we are safe and swim back to the ship. We scramble aboard and sit in the hot sun. We shut our eyes and sleep for awhile.

Seat Work

Preparation: Write each S word from the story on index cards. Add some non S words for sorting purposes.

Depending on the age group, you can sort action verbs, s words, or consonant blends.
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