Will new standards take all the fun out of Kindergarten?
One concern we hear again and again from parents of kindergartners-to-be is that the Common Core State Standards will turn the classroom into a monotonous boot camp where children are drilled continuously to prep for tests, tests, and more tests. Kindergartners, they point out, need physical activity to help develop their motor skills, and and they also need loosely structured time to foster their social development. Those things are nowhere in the standards. Are they going to disappear from Kindergarten altogether?
Listen, pardner, the CCSS standards are guidelines for what students are expected to learn in school, not how they should learn them. It is up to individual school districts and teachers to determine how much of school is "play" versus memorization and drill.
At Wrangling the Common Core, we believe that Kindergarten and pre-K children learn best when they are having fun and relating new lessons to the physical world around them. Sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on Pinterest to get ideas for fun activities for your child that will also help her learn the skills required by the CCSS every week. You'll also get printable worksheets from RangerKidz, and links to tons of other helpful resources to boot.