Five-Year-Olds Growth Patterns
At home as well as school, you may notice your kindergartener:
Physical
-Needing lots of physical activity, including free play
- Holding pencils with a three-fingered, pincer-like grasp
Social- Emotional
- helping, cooperating, and following rules in order to obtain adult approval
- Needing routines, along with consistent rules and discipline; responding well to clear and simple expectations
- Having trouble seeing things from another's viewpoint
- Working quietly on an activity for 15-20 minutes at a time
- Expressing thoughts through actions
- Behaving wonderfully at home and terribly at school, or vice versa
Language
- Using and interpreting words in their most basic sense (literal reasoning)
- Not talking about school happenings at home
- Expressing themselves in few words such as "play" and "good"
Cognitive
- Likes to copy and repeat activities; learns best through repetition
- Often sees only one way to do things
- Isn't ready to understand abstract concepts such as "fairness"
- Learns best through active play and hands-on activities
-Needing lots of physical activity, including free play
- Holding pencils with a three-fingered, pincer-like grasp
Social- Emotional
- helping, cooperating, and following rules in order to obtain adult approval
- Needing routines, along with consistent rules and discipline; responding well to clear and simple expectations
- Having trouble seeing things from another's viewpoint
- Working quietly on an activity for 15-20 minutes at a time
- Expressing thoughts through actions
- Behaving wonderfully at home and terribly at school, or vice versa
Language
- Using and interpreting words in their most basic sense (literal reasoning)
- Not talking about school happenings at home
- Expressing themselves in few words such as "play" and "good"
Cognitive
- Likes to copy and repeat activities; learns best through repetition
- Often sees only one way to do things
- Isn't ready to understand abstract concepts such as "fairness"
- Learns best through active play and hands-on activities