Talk to any elementary teacher or scroll through a teacher-only Facebook group and you’ll get a glimpse into the world beyond preschool. I personally ran a home daycare, taught preschool, and worked at other preschools for 5 years before making a leap into third grade.

And OMG! I expected 9 year olds to be more…mature? Now, I have a daughter in second grade so I had an idea of what’s developmentally appropriate behavior.

But I didn’t anticipate such a huge gap between my visions and reality.

The reality is that these basic social skills are not being taught at home, but are highly necessary for a successful elementary experience.

So, I’m pleading with all of you preschool teachers and daycare providers, please teach your kiddos these 5 things:

Pay attention when your teacher is talking to you
Share materials
Use kind words
Clean up after yourself
Follow directions

5 Important Things You Need to Teach in Preschool

#1. Pay Attention When Your Teacher is Talking to You

In preschool, I made it a habit to get on the child’s level and speak clearly when someone was having difficulty listening.

But by third grade, I feel like my students should know what’s expected of them. And though kids will be kids, it would be great if they actually looked towards me when I speak to them.

You see, if they’re working together on something or in a transition to another task, I allow talking. Even I don’t like a perfectly quiet classroom all day long.

But come on! Half the time when I say their name, they are completely oblivious and keep talking.

I like to say, “PAUSE!” to let them know they can go back to their work or chatter as soon as they answer my question, and that NOW is the time to stop talking and pay attention.

I never realized just how important it is to be consistent and create a habit in the little ones until I got to elementary school.

#2. Share Materials

This is everyone’s first memory of preschool, right? Who isn’t teaching kids to share?

Well, somewhere along the line the ball got dropped because my third graders DO NOT know how to share materials. Blame? Yes. Colored pencils? No.

I’m not even kidding. My 5 year old shares better than they do.

So, yeah, keep training them to share because this lady doesn’t have time to police the markers anymore.

#3. Use Kind Words

Elementary teachers have a much higher student to teacher ratio than preschool teachers. Also, my class has to be silent a good portion of the day so we can get our work done. So there’s not many mean words uttered in the classroom.

But it’s easier to get away with using harsh words toward peers out of earshot of the teachers, like at lunch or recess.

Sometimes those words often do make it to the ears of teachers, whether whispered a little too loudly or repeated from another student.

And then we spend all the time we should be talking about George Washington discussing what are and are not kind words.

And if those words don’t make it back to the teacher, that doesn’t make them hurt any less.

When I was in preschool, I was very closely interacting with a group of students almost constantly. So I was right there to correct and model kind words when the opportunity arose, and they knew I held them to high standards with their words.

So please teach your preschoolers to use their words kindly!

#4. Clean Up After Yourself

Now, I understand that some small scraps of paper and paper shavings are bound to fall onto the floor. I also understand a few lost pencils or papers that miss the trash can.

But why a 9 year old can’t put the lid back on a glue stick is beyond me!

Sometimes I want to finish grading something or clean up my desk while they clean up their supplies. I don’t want to stand over them making sure they put their things away nicely or check for good work and enforce consequences.

But, if there’s no clear consequence, those shelves will be a mess. Or there will be pillows all over the library area. Certain students have a mess under their desk every day.

Maybe if we can create good habits in preschool, they’ll stay with the students into elementary school.

#5. Follow Directions

I do realize that following directions will be a life-long goal, because it’s in kids’ nature to test boundaries and human nature to avoid stress.

But it’s also a necessity of life! So let’s make these kids as independent and responsible as we can in the short period of time we each have them in our classrooms.

Responsible and independent preschoolers might clean up their own lunch and know to immediately use the restroom and get ready for rest time.

Responsible and independent third graders can pace themselves throughout the day to get their work done without too many reminders to focus.

5 Important Things You Need to Teach in Preschool

These 5 things for you to teach your preschoolers are definitely not limited to preschool or unique to my classroom.

The very nature of children means that these issues will always exist in the classroom to some extent.

However, I do believe that good habits can last a lifetime, because they’re something that is done subconsciously.

And again, unfortunately, these social skills aren’t being taught in every household. So that leaves it up to you, early childhood educators!

Many parents and educators think that preschool needs to be highly academic. But research has shown that what preschoolers really need is play and social skills. You can read more about that in this post.