Kindergarten Readiness

Do you remember the blog topic from last week? It was about memory! Memory skills are like many others–they improve with practice and exercise. For young children, memory skills are developing and they often surprise with the things that they remember and older ones, like teenagers, surprise us with the things they forget! Because of personal differences, some children will find it easier to remember things they hear while for others it is things they see, just like adults. Being able to remember is an important learning strategy and helpful for kindergarten readiness. Here is an activity to encourage visual memory development.

With your child find 2 or 3 (or more) small objects and put them on a tray or placemat. Look at them for a minute or two and talk about them. Then, cover them with a cloth and ask your little one what is hiding under there. Take the cover off and check.

“Wasn’t that fun? Some things were hiding but you still remembered!” For variety, cover the items with the cloth, but before uncovering them, take one away. This time when you take off the cloth, have your child guess which one is missing. Then, cover your eyes and let your child take one away for you to guess.

I played this game with a 3-year old and she was able to figure out accurately when we used 4 objects which item was missing but not with 6. She loved playing it and asked to do it again the next day. Using different objects makes it new again. This activity is a good one to do when having to wait somewhere with a little one, especially if there is limited space to play. This readiness for kindergarten fun takes only a few minutes and can be done practically anywhere. An added benefit is as your little one gets better and the number of objects increases it keeps your memory in shape, too.