Skills A Child Should Bring to Kindergarten: 

Social and Self Help Skills

• Clean up their personal space, including toys and tools
• Know their first and last names
• Know how to unpack their backpack and put things in it
• Takes care of self in the bathroom
• Put on their coats, button or zip
• Realize there will be other children in class and they share a teacher’s time
• Cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing
• Share materials and toys with others
• Show concern about fairness
• Follow two or three part directions, such as “We’re going to put backpacks away, take
• our folders out and hang up our coats”

Academic Skills

• Hold a pencil or crayon and be able to color
• Hold scissors and be able to cut
• Print their name
• Know basic color and simple shapes
• Understand spatial words such as over, above, beside and in between
• Work on a task over a period of time
• Sustain attention for story time and sharing
• Represent simple objects through drawing
• Retell a story in sequential order
• Sort objects in categories
• Recognize some numbers
• Be able to count objects up to ten
• Identify upper and lower case letters