_KindyNews is your LOCAL print and online EMag packed with quality news, tips, information and advice for mums and dads of KindyNews-aged kids.

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__Ready for Big Kindy?
Use this checklist to help determine if your child has the skills he needs for this big step.

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_By Peggy Gisler and Marge Eberts

_Ready For Big Kindy?
While there's no perfect formula that determines when children are truly ready for Big kindy, you can use this checklist to see how well your child is doing in acquiring the skills found on most kindy checklists.

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Check the skills your child has mastered. Then recheck every month to see what additional skills your child can accomplish easily.  Young children change so fast - if they can't do something this week, they may be able to do it a few weeks later.

• Listen to stories without interrupting
• Recognize rhyming sounds
• Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
• Understand actions have both causes and effects
• Show understanding of general times of day
• Cut with scissors
• Trace basic shapes
• Begin to share with others
• Start to follow rules
• Be able to recognize authority
• Manage bathroom needs
• Button shirts, pants, coats, and zip up zippers
• Begin to control oneself
• Separate from parents without being upset
• Speak understandably
• Talk in complete sentences of five to six words
• Look at pictures and then tell stories
• Identify rhyming words
• Identify the beginning sound of some words
• Identify some alphabet letters
• Recognize some common sight words like "stop"
• Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape
• Recognize groups of one, two, three, four, and five objects
• Count to ten
• Bounce a ball