The Welcome to Kindergarten program brings together families, school and community agencies to support children as they enter school. The goal is to share strategies and resources that make early learning through play a priority in the home and support children in a successful transition to school.

• Pre-school children
  • Welcome to Kindergarten builds foundations for learning for children, so starting kindergarten can be a happy, exciting and successful experience.
  • The WTK bag is filled with valuable resources and activities that help children develop:
    • Listening and speaking
    • Sharing and turn-taking
    • Self-regulation, self-confidence
    • Vocabulary, following directions
    • Print, alphabet and number awareness
    • Enjoyment of stories and books
    • Hand and finger coordination for cutting, colouring, pasting, writing
    • Creative thinking and exploring
• Families
  • Families are empowered to be the child’s first and best teacher.
  • They receive the support and expertise through this program to use early learning activities and play with their children.
  • Family orientations in the schools build mutual trust and confidence.
  • Families also receive our popular Welcome to Kindergarten bag filled with books, games and invaluable information resources.
• Schools and Community Partners
  • School teams learn of the early childhood expertise in their community.
  • Community agencies develop positive relationships with schools and build awareness of their family support programs.
  • Families learn of the support in their community and hear common messages.

Schools and/or school boards contact Welcome to Kindergarten to express interest. A regional program manager reviews the program with the key school/school board contact prior to them declaring their participation through a Letter of Understanding. Program fees are set provincially and communicated as part of the review.

In the year before starting school, parents/caregivers and their children are invited to attend one or more Welcome to Kindergarten family orientations at their neighbourhood school and/or community partner agency.

• Families participate in activities using books, magnetic numbers and letters, arts and craft, music and movement and games. Families meet school principals, kindergarten teachers, school resource personnel, and staff from community support agencies.
• Educators provide active early learning experiences that model how family planned activities using the resources in the Welcome to Kindergarten™ bag will help their children be better prepared for school and learning.
• Every family receives the Welcome to Kindergarten bag full with books, resources and the ‘Family Activities Resource Booklet” to take home, to have fun and to help their child make a smooth transition to school. Parent information is available in over 27 languages.
• The WTK bag of resources is supplemented for families with free, downloadable early learning resources from our WTK website.

The Welcome to Kindergarten team provide ‘face-to-face’ professional learning for educators and community partners to implement the program in their community. eLearning is provided through our online training program to all educators and community partners registered to participate in the Welcome to Kindergarten program.

The Learning Partnership regularly evaluates the impact of the Welcome to Kindergarten program on early literacy and school readiness of children. Educators complete an implementation survey annually. Parents also participate in annual program online survey. Special extended/enriched programming efforts are evaluated by third party institutions.