On Tuesday, July 25, Kaitlyn Mullis presented the last installment of the library’s four-part “Get Set 4 K” summer program.

Mullis’s 45-minute program was structured like an abbreviated day of kindergarten. It focused not only on introducing children to the different activities they will complete in a day at kindergarten but also how to transition appropriately between those activities and have a successful school day.

When children arrived, the library’s Community Room was set up like a miniature classroom. Children found their assigned seats at tables equipped for the day’s activities with a completed and blank name tag, pencils and pens, and strips of construction paper with shapes drawn on them. At the front of the “classroom,” Mullis had posted a copy of the day’s schedule, a sample of the day’s craft, and her own name.

Mullis began with a roll call, instructing each child to raise his hand when his name was called. After the roll call, children practiced copying their names onto the blank name tag with pencil and then tracing over them in pen.

After writing practice, the children moved to the rug in the front of the classroom for storytime. Mullis reminded the children to move calmly and quietly to the storytime rug and to sit “criss cross applesauce” for the story. The story, Kindergarten is Cool, reinforced the same concepts Mullis practiced with the children as it took them through a full day of kindergarten.

After storytime, the children went back to their seats. Half of the class left the Community Room to use computers with a library assistant while the other half stayed in the “classroom” for rhyme time, mimicking the way the children will leave their regular kindergarten classroom for “specials” in the fall. Rhyme time not only taught literacy skills but also gave children the opportunity to practice the essential classroom skill of raising their hands and waiting to be called on.

Next came snack time. While the children ate fruit snacks and crackers, Mullis read How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? The story distinguished between poor school behaviors like rough housing and being disruptive and good school behaviors like being quiet during class and sharing.

Mullis’s “school day” concluded with a craft. Children used construction paper, scissors, glue and markers to draw a picture of themselves standing under a banner that said “Hooray for Kindergarten!”

Mullis’s practice school day was a lovely capstone to the Get Set 4 K series. Best of luck to all of Mint Hill’s rising kindergarteners as they enter school this fall!