Student Skills
Kindergarten Gear Up is built around a backpack of 20 skills that will help children thrive in kindergarten. Most of these are skills that children will develop throughout their school years. Kindergarten Gear Up is focused on making children and caregivers aware of their importance and helping children get off to a good start.
- Body & Spatial Awareness – The sensation of body position and movement. Awareness of where one’s body is in relation to one’s surroundings.
- Communication – The ability to convey daily needs, make an acquaintance, ask questions, express emotions and concepts, to speak in a group, to listen and respond to others. The ability to predict how others might respond.
- Connecting with Others – Children benefit from knowing how introduce themselves and connect with other children and how and when it is appropriate to ask for help.
- Cooperation – Sharing and working together for a common goal. To cooperate successfully, children must use self-control, perspective taking, and communication skills.
- Critical Thinking – Critical thinking is the ability to question and test assumptions, as well as the ongoing search for reliable knowledge to guide beliefs, decisions, and actions. It is an important skill for problem solving and understanding the world around us.
- Fine Motor Skills – Movements involving smaller muscle groups, such as those in the hand. These are important for many kindergarten activities, especially writing.
- Focus & Self-Control – The ability to ignore distractions and focus on the task at hand. The ability to control impulses and delay gratification. This is part of the executive function and is tied to later success in school.
- Function in Group – How to behave in a group or classroom setting. An awareness of whom to pay attention to and an awareness of how one’s own behavior will affect the group. This basic understanding of group dynamics is important for getting along with others in the classroom and on the playground.
- Growth Mindset – The attitude that skills are not innate traits but are something that we learn and get better at with practice. This attitude fosters resiliency.
- Independence – The ability and confidence to take on situations and challenges without relying on a primary caregiver. Children with emotional independence have an easier time adjusting to kindergarten.
- Kindergarten Knowledge – It is useful for children and caregivers to know what to expect in kindergarten. It helps them prepare and alleviates fear of the unknown.
- Letter Recognition – Knowing the names and sounds of printed letters.
- Numeracy – The ability to recognize and understand numbers and use them in real world situations.
- Perspective Taking – Recognizing and considering others’ feelings and perspectives and understanding that these are different from one’s own perspective. This skill is important for connecting to others and preventing conflict.
- Print Awareness – An understanding of basic concepts about writing, printed words, and books.
- Resilience – The ability to cope with mistakes, challenges, and failures.
- Sequencing – The ability to identify the order of events in a story or event. This simple understanding of cause, effect, and order is important for problem solving and comprehension.
- Sorting – Understanding the relationship between things and grasping how they are related. This type of associative thinking is a vital part of how we learn and understand the world.
- Vocabulary – Knowledge of the appropriate word for objects, actions, and concepts. A large vocabulary is linked to later success in school.
- Word Awareness – (also called Phonological Awareness) Awareness of the sounds used in words and those words are made of groups of sounds (syllables).
