Transitional Kindergarten is a free, full-day early entrance kindergarten experience for children who are scheduled to enter kindergarten the following year.
This program focuses on basic academic and social skills to help qualifying students get a jump start on kindergarten and toward success in school. In order to be eligible, students must demonstrate academic, language or social need and cannot be currently enrolled in another early learning program.
“A benefit of this program is to prepare kids for kindergarten, so they go in feeling successful,” said Transitional Kindergarten teacher Ashley Gardella. “They already know what school is, know how to interact with peers and know what a teacher is and what a teacher does.”
In Meridian, our Transitional Kindergarten classes partner with our developmental preschool classes to create an inclusive early childhood experience.
The programs partner by bringing classes together to engage in work time (learning through play choice time), recess, snack and enrichment classes.
“These opportunities create more social experiences for all children. It builds on inclusionary practices in place by creating more opportunities for the children in developmental preschool where they can learn from other peers,” Gardella said.
During the school day, children have whole group learning time focused on social-emotional skills and academics which are engaging, interactive and hands-on. Many lessons are followed with play opportunities for children to build on the skill learned during the lesson and to apply the skill in different ways. All academics are hands-on allowing children the opportunity to play with letters and numbers, manipulate them, and create them using a variety of materials such as blocks, pipe cleaners and rocks.
“Emphasizing the importance of play and how it builds on the natural curiosity children have about the world around them allows children to build social and problem-solving skills in an authentic way,” Gardella said.
Early education programs provide children an opportunity to be in a social setting with same-aged peers. Children learn social skills such as turn-taking, solving problems, managing feelings when things don’t go their way and empathy for others that will follow them throughout their life. They learn and develop these skills with the support of an adult in a way that works for them in an authentic way since it is with other peers and not just adults.
Being in Transitional Kindergarten also allows the opportunity to identify children who may need early support academically, social-emotionally, physically and linguistically or in another area. Tools can then be put in place to support growth in later years to help the overall success of each child. Early education programs look at the child as a whole.
Families who have children who meet eligibility requirements for Transitional Kindergarten can apply beginning Monday, March 6. Visit our website at www.meridian.wednet.edu/ire/early-childhood.