My Sunshine - My First Grader!

11/25/2013

Preparation of a child for school is an important period of time in a life of parents and their children alike. Pre-school child is about to enter into a new life. What will he be like when he walks through the doors of his new school? What kind of success and achievement will he have? Many parents ask these questions. Some believe that they must themselves prepare their children for school; others rely on the preschool teachers for that; while there are some that believe this should be a concern and responsibility of a school itself. As a result children enter into schools with various levels of preparedness, and if a teacher is indifferent as to how prepared your child is and considers it your responsibility as a parent to make sure a child is ready for school, then here is an example of students destined to fail. Yet all children go to school with a hope that their particular experience will be interesting and fascinating. Children are eager to learn!

In school a child will need not only notebooks and pens, but also all that knowledge and skills that he was able to attribute by the time he started school. However, all children are different; it is not coincidental that some are ready for school at the age of 6 while others are better off starting at nearly 8. Most importantly is to understand that preparing for school is a long, creative, and stage-by-stage process. In order for a child to be able to understand and learn he must first be provided memory training, be taught how to think independently and process information, as well as to exercise creativity.

We begin preparing children for school in groups of 5, at the age of 4. Our ten-year-experience confirms that the sooner a child starts studying math the easier it becomes for him and the results later achieved as significantly better.

Math lessons with little ones are enjoyable for all. Children feel they are grown-up and smart, parents are proud of their success, and I am happy and interested in watching foundations of mathematical thinking develop in these tiny fun human beings. They are like a sponge; quickly and willingly observe everything that’s taught to them.

So what is it that a future first-grader must know and be able to do?

- Be able to listen and actually hear what a teacher has to say
- Be able to communicate well with classmates
- To know individual numbers from one to ten
- To know the components of a number composed of 2 smaller ones
- Be able to count straight ahead and backwards
- Be able to correlate a number to the amount of objects present
- Be able to make proper use of quantitative and individual numerators
- Be able to compare numbers in a range of 10
- Be able to determine which number is less or greater than the other
- Be able to compare an uneven number of objects in two different ways (add, subtract)

We offer a new program for your future first-graders: “Math classes for preparing children for school”, which differs from the traditional preparation system. Our methods are aimed to develop aspiration of a child to learn independently and willingly. After attending our program children become used to thinking; they are able to attribute and process new information much faster as well as they are able to retain it better. While teaching children enrolled in this program, I was able to see how much their thinking process and overall attitude towards studying change.

Dear parents! I would like to wish all of you for your children to have a wonderful time during their school years and would like to give you some advice:

- Do not overpraise your child, yet do not forget to reward him when he deserves it.
- Do not compare your child to other kids; instead compare him to yourself and to what he was like yesterday as well as what will he be like tomorrow.
- Do not be afraid to sincerely love your child and show it to him.

If you have any questions or your child needs help preparing for school, please call or write to us.