One of the most important skills your kindergartner needs to develop is the ability to stay focused for extended periods of time. In the classroom, activities like circle time are designed to keep kids' attention focused on the teacher for increasing amounts of time. Help your child develop this skill at home by engaging him in a favorite activity and offering gentle reminders when he starts to lose focus. Get him started with a puzzle, game or coloring activity, set a timer for five or 10 minutes, and encourage him to stay focused until the timer buzzes. Make this a daily activity to help build his focus gradually, and praise him when he reaches new time goals.
Healthy reading habits start early and should continue to be encouraged long after your child has entered kindergarten. Even if she hasn't mastered sight words just yet, letting your child "read" to you from her favorite picture book is an effective way to help develop important reading skills. Afterward, prompt her to recall her favorite part of the story and what she liked best about the main character to help her develop reading comprehension skills. Allowing your child to write and illustrate her own story is another fun way to develop great reading skills.
Counting, sorting, and measuring are all useful ways to help your little one develop his math skills at home. Have him find and count items during grocery shopping trips, sort household items by size, shape or color, or let him measure the ingredients for baking a cake. Simple addition and subtraction exercises will also help him succeed in the classroom. For example, ask him to figure out how many cupcakes he needs for him and his friend to have two cupcakes each, or how many of the six apples will be left if you and him each have one for a snack.
Learning to interact and play well with others is an important part of your child's development and will help her succeed in kindergarten. Setting up play dates with other children is a fun way to let her exercise the skills she is learning both at home and in the classroom. Teach her the basic principles of sharing, listening, and being respectful of other's feelings by engaging her in role-playing activities, and then let her host a tea party with a few of her friends to explore her new skills.