What your kindergartner needs to know: preparing your child for a lifetime of learning

I. Language and Literature

II. History and Geography

III. Visual Arts

IV. Music

V. Mathematics

VI. Science.

Language and literature : Reading, writing, and your kindergartner : Teaching children to read: the need for a balanced approach ; Learning to read and write ; A goal for kindergarten ; What does a good kindergarten program do? ; What parents can do to help

Literature : Introduction: worlds of meanings

Familiar and favorite poems : Activities for poetry ; Time to rise ; Happy thought ; Hickory, dickory, dock ; Early to bed ; Diddle, diddle, dumpling ; A diller, a dollar ; Hey, diddle, diddle ; Little Bo peep ; Little boy blue ; Baa, baa, black sheep ; One, two, buckle my shoe ; Rain, rain, go away ; It's raining, it's pouring ; April rain song ; The more it snows ; My nose ; Roses are red ; Mary, Mary, quite contrary ; Tommy ; Jack and Jill ; Jack be nimble ; There was a little girl ; Little miss muffet ; Georgie porgie ; Humpty dumpty ; Little Jack Horner ; Mary had a little lamb ; Hot cross buns! ; Simple Simon ; Old mother Hubbard ; Old king Cole ; Sing a song of sixpence ; Ladybug, ladybug ; Three blind mice ; Jack sprat ; Seesaw, Margery daw ; The three little kittens ; There was an old woman who lived in a shoe ; Star light, star bright

Aesop's fables : The dog and his shadow ; The lion and the mouse ; The hare and the tortoise ; The grasshopper and the ants

Stories : The three little pigs ; Goldilocks and the three bears ; The three Billy goats gruff ; Momotaro: peach boy ; The little red hen ; Chicken little ; Little red riding hood ; The story of jumping mouse ; The Bremen town musicians ; The ugly duckling ; Tug-of-war ; Cinderella ; The wolf and the seven little kids ; King Midas and the golden touch ; Snow white ; How many spots does a leopard have? ; In which pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight place (from Winnie-the-Pooh) ; The velveteen rabbit; or, how toys become real ; Two tall tales ; Johnny Appleseed ; Casey jones

Sayings : April showers bring May flowers ; Better safe than sorry ; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you ; A dog is man's best friend ; The early bird gets the worm ; Great oaks from little acorns grow ; Look before you leap ; A place for everything and everything in its place ; It's raining cats and dogs ; Practice makes perfect ; Where there's a will, there's a way

History and geography : World history and geography : What a ball! Our world ; Oceans and continents ; Maps and the globe ; Which way are you going? ; Around the world in seven ways ; Asia ; Europe ; Africa ; North America ; South America ; Australia ; Antarctica

American history and geography : Your country ; Looking back ; The first Americans: many peoples and many places ; Homes in the desert, homes by the ocean ; Christopher Columbus ; The voyage to the "new world" ; Pilgrims in the new world ; A thanksgiving feast ; Happy birthday, America! ; "Democracy": what's that? ; Not completely free ; Presidents: leaders in a democracy ; George Washington: the father of our country ; George Washington and the cherry tree ; Thomas Jefferson: the idea man ; Honest Abe Lincoln ; Theodore Roosevelt: the teddy bear president ; Other presidents

Visual Arts : What do artists do? ; Color, color everywhere ; Follow that line! ; Looking at pictures: really looking! ; Sculpture: statues, monuments, and more

Music : Do you like music? : Musical activities for parents and children ; Activity 1: moving responsibly to music ; Activity 2: "Beat it!" ; Activity 3: LOUD and quiet ; Activity 4: fast and slow ; Activity 5: high and low

Favorite songs : Bingo ; Go in and out the window ; Hush, little baby ; London bridge is falling down ; Here we go round the mulberry bush ; My bonnie lies over the ocean ; Old MacDonald ; Twinkle, twinkle, little star ; Pop! Goes the weasel ; Go tell aunt Rhody ; The bear went over the mountain ; Jingle bells ; The farmer in the dell ; The hokey pokey ; If you're happy and you know it ; Kookaburra ; Kum ba yah ; Row, row, row your boat ; The wheels on the bus ; This old man

Mathematics : Patterns and classifications : Activity 1: collecting things by likeness ; Activity 2: sorting everyday objects ; Activity 3: alike and different ; Activity 4: shape sort ; Activity 5: shape train ; Activity 6: potato prints ; Activity 7: more play with patterns

Numbers and number sense : Activity 1: numbers from 1 to 10 ; Activity 2: loading the train: counting objects to 10 ; Activity 3: the size of 10 ; Activity 4: counting game ; Activity 5: how many? ; Activity 6: number match ; Activity 7: one more, one less ; Activity 8: most and fewest ; Activity 9: counting more than 10 objects ; Activity 10: things that come in pairs ; Activity 11: counting by twos ; Activity 12: counting by fives and tens ; Activity 13: half and half ; Activity 14: a good-job graph ; Activity 15: block train. Money : Activity 1: identifying money ; Activity 2 : money bingo

Computation : Activity 1: addition: finding totals ; Activity 2: subtraction: the take-away game ; Activity 3: addition and subtraction stories

Measurement : Activity 1: measurement tools ; Activity 2: measuring with paper clips ; Activity 3: measuring with hands and feet ; Activity 4: fall, half-full, and empty ; Activity 5: heavy and light ; Activity 6: long and short events ; Activity 7: before and after; morning, afternoon, and evening ; Activity 8: what time is it? ; Activity 9: the calendar

Geometry : Activity 1: what's the shape? ; Activity 2: shape and size ; Activity 3: where is it? Using words of position and direction ; Activity 4: Simon says

Science : Plants and plant growth : Plants are all around us ; Seeds grow into plants ; Watch a seed grow in a "see through" planter ; What plants need to grow ; What do plants need?: an experiment ; Seeds to eat ; We eat many plant parts ; Growing food plants

Seasons and weather : The four seasons ; Talking about the weather ; The wind blows in many directions ; Rain and snow ; Make a snowflake ; Storms

Animals and their needs : Taking care of pets ; Animals care for their babies

The human body : Your five senses ; Taking care of your body

Taking care of the earth : The forests and the trees ; Conservation: saving and protecting the earth ; It's smart to recycle ; Keep our earth clean

An invisible force: magnetism : Can magnetic force pass through an object? ; What do magnets attract?

Stories about scientists : George Washington Carver ; Jane Goodall ; Wilbur and Orville Wright.