5 skills developed during kindergarten

What are fine motor skills and gross motor skills? In short, fine motor skills include everything related to precise movements (e.g., picking up small objects, using scissors). Gross motor skills, on the other hand, encompass whole-body movements (e.g., walking, running). In kindergarten, various classroom activities will allow your child to strengthen both types of motor skills:

• Cutting shapes with scissors
• Playing with blocks
• Drawing
• Dancing
• Doing agility courses (e.g., walking on beams, crawling under chairs)
• Clapping to a beat
• Etc.

In kindergarten, your child will also learn to follow rules, recognize and manage their emotions, and control their impulsiveness. These skills are all part of self-control, which involves, among other things, the ability to do the following:

• Stay focused (e.g., building games, colouring, identification activities)
• Manage stress (e.g., meditation, yoga, physical activities, free play)

Children are social little beings. However, interacting with others and knowing how to behave in a group are two very different things. To help foster students’ social skills, teachers can organize activities that require putting certain abilities into practice:

• How to follow instructions 
• How to find strategies to manage conflicts and interactions (e.g., explain a problem calmly, ask an adult for help)
• How to reason
• How to participate (e.g., tidy the classroom, distribute materials)
• Etc.

In kindergarten, kids have the opportunity to communicate and express themselves. This allows them to continue developing their language skills by expanding their vocabulary and using more complex sentences. They also learn to read and write in different contexts. Many classroom activities will help improve your child’s language skills. For example, the teacher might do the following:

• Read to the class
• Play games involving letters, sounds, or rhymes
• Teach the class songs and rhymes 
• Have the students write group stories
• Etc.

Being curious—seeking to understand, discover, and explore—is essential to be a successful student. To motivate kids to learn and stimulate their intellectual appetite, kindergarten classes offer activities that appeal to children’s varied tastes and interests.
The teacher might provide their students with materials or organize games that encourage them to do the following:

• Observe and explore their surroundings
• Handle different objects and use basic math
• Memorize rhymes
• Practise self-reflection
• Etc.