Moms who recently had a kindergartener..eta!

[WrapNLoseInches]

 My son is 4 this month. he starts kindergarten NEXt August (2013)

Since Im staying home after baby is born, I want to work with him a LOT over the next year to get him prepared for kindergarten at age 5, instead of age 6. he's on that fine line birthday wise where he has to test in at age 5. (he missed cut off by ONE day to be automatically in at age 5)

So what are some things even the mundane things, that he should know or needs to be learning by kindergarten.

I can't go by my experience because I was doing multiplication addition/subtraction and division BEFORE kindergarten. Plus I could read and write and was learning cursive. ( i had a SAHM and LOTs of siblings teaching me)

Iknow thats extremely unlikely with my DS.

so other than saying his ABC's and counting to 50 cutting a straight line with scissors and writing his name what else does he need to know before kindergarten.

 

im looking for the things he will be TESTED on to get early placement since he misses the auto-enroll by ONE day. so im looking for REQUIREMENTS type stuff...

dont worry, i will push him beyond what is required, however, I want to be sure i focus on the requirements that he will need to enroll at age 5 instead of having to wait a whole year because his birthday fell ONE day after cut off.

[WrapNLoseInches]

 yes, it sucks too! If we would have not moved to this town, and stayed where we were we would have been fine cuz the cut off was "age 5 by first day of school" lol.. but new town, new district, new rules.

Quoting snb8604:

 Your cutoff for Kindergarten is in May? Wow thats early. The cutoff here is Sept 1st.

 

[Gealach]

You've gotten some good tips but if the school doesn't teach them to read until 2nd grade I would seriously be looking for other options. Here by the end of K they are reading those books like See Spot Run

[Toadstoolmama]

At my kids school (he's in prek now and will be in kinder in the fall) they do what's called a dibbles test. Basically it's a bunch of random upper and lower case letters and they have to identify as many as they can in a minute. They test them at the beginning and during school to see how they progress. They have to "read" it from left to right.

They asked us to work on them with it over the summer. My little one is already reading, but it's supposed to help with reading.

Also you could practice sorting small and big items. Ask him to count objects and put say five crayons next to the number 5. He could draw a picture and describe what he drew.