Keystone Oaks School District

Children who lived in Castle Shannon, Dormont, or Green Tree and are 5 years of age on or before September 1, 2025 may attend kindergarten during the 2025-2026 school year. 

Kindergarten Registration for the 2025-2026 school year is now open. 
Please visit the New Student Registration page for instructions on how to register your child for kindergarten.

Kick Off to Kindergarten Presentation - Please click here to view the presentation from the Kick Off to Kindergarten event that was held on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. 

At Keystone Oaks, we understand how important it is to make the right choice for your child's first year of school. Keystone Oaks teachers, staff and administrators are dedicated to working with families and their children to ensure that the transition to kindergarten is as easy and exciting as possible. 

Attending kindergarten is important for child development and future educational success:

• Kindergarten helps children prepare for the transition from home to school and entry into first grade. 
• Children who attend kindergarten develop the skills necessary for educational success through hands-on and interactive learning experiences. 
• The age at which a child attends kindergarten is a significant period in development when independence, initiative, decision-making, creativity, learning ability, relating to others and feelings of self-worth begin. 

Keystone Oaks kindergarten curriculum is designed to ensure that your child is engaged in a supportive learning environment and learns the necessary skills for educational success through a variety of interactive, hands-on lessons and activities. Attending kindergarten is an important step in helping your child develop readiness skills for future academic success. At the conclusion of the kindergarten program, your child will:

• Develop independence and responsibility
• Enhance fine and gross motor skills
• Be able to think creatively and solve problems independently and as part of a group
• Cooperate with others, listen and follow directions

Establishing a daily routine is very important in kindergarten. Below is a snapshot of what a day in kindergarten at Keystone Oaks looks like:

Upon arrival, students:

• Put away belongings in their cubbies/lockers
• Bring homework and announcement folders in to the classroom
• Begin to complete independent morning work
• Listen to announcements and say the Pledge of Allegiance

Students learn math concepts, such as:

• Recognizing and quantifying numbers, patterns, number sense and place value over the course of the year
• Demonstrating problem-solving strategies
• Solving simple addition and subtraction problems
• Students are introduced to language, phonological and phonemic awareness skills by:
• Learning to hear and manipulate sounds
• Putting words together and taking them apart
• Exposure to different genres through a variety of stories
• Identify settings and characters, as well as the beginning, middle and end of stories

Science in kindergarten is an inquiry-based learning program that enables students to develop valuable skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork as they explore the five senses through the world of fabric. Kindergarten students enjoy gym, music, art, library and STEAM activities time each week. 

Deciding whether or not a child is ready for kindergarten is an important and challenging question facing many families. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when deciding whether or not a child is ready to begin attending school.

The following list is provided to give families a sense of the skills that children should have before entering Kindergarten. Not every skill on the list must be acquired before a child can enter kindergarten. The teachers in Keystone Oaks' kindergarten program will work with children to develop these skills over the course of the year.

Families who have questions about whether or not a child is ready for kindergarten are encouraged to reach out their pediatrician, pre-school teacher and/or child care provider, who may have valuable input. Additionally, before entering kindergarten, children will go through an interview and screening process with Kindergarten teachers, who will assess readiness skills in a number of areas. Click here for more information about the screening process.

Typical kindergarten readiness skills include:

• Sharing and understanding the concept of taking turns
• Cooperating and playing well with others
• Sitting still and listening to an entire story
• Attending to a task for at least 10 minutes
• Speaking and asking for what they need
• Recognizing their own name and answering to it
• Helping to pick up and put away materials after an activity is finished
• Using the toilet independently
• Playing by themselves for a short period of time
• Identifying some letters of the alphabet (upper and lower case)
• Counting to 10 and identifying some numbers
• Sorting objects by color, shape and size
• Identifying colors
• Recognizing and writing his/her own name
• Being away from parents for a brief period and understanding that they will come back
• Demonstrating large motor skills, such as hopping, catching a ball and using alternating feet to talk up and down the stairs

Help your child get excited about kindergarten by checking out these kindergarten-themed books, many of which are available at the libraries in Castle Shannon, Dormont & Green Tree:

• Who Will Go to Kindergarten Today?, Karl Ruhmann
• The Night Before Kindergarten, Natasha Wing
• Miss Bindergarten Get Ready for Kindergarten, by Joseph Slater
• Tiptoe Into Kindergarten, by Jacqueline Rogers
• Countdown to Kindergarten, by Alison McGhee
• Kindergarten Kids, by Ellen B. Sensis
• Kindergarten Rocks, by Katie Davis
• Will I Have a Friend?, by Miriam Cohen
• First Day Jitters, by Julie Danneberg