The City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, Head Start, Boston Children’s Museum, The Zero-to-Eight Coalition, and the Citywide Educational Coalition started collaborating on new, simple efforts to support Boston families in their child’s transition into kindergarten.

The Zero-to-Eight Coalition and Boston Public Schools created the “Kindergarten Transition Team,” a group of BPS kindergarten teachers and childcare providers. They met to build relationships and share information to help children move from one system (child care) to the other (public school).

Over 5,000 incoming BPS kindergarteners received “Countdown to Kindergarten” welcoming packages delivered to their homes to prepare them for the Sept. 9 start of school. The welcome packages included the book “Read to Your Bunny,” a letter from former Mayor Thomas Menino, a bookmark, pencil, coloring page, magnet, calendar, and literacy and health insurance information.

The Boston Children’s Museum partnered with Boston Public Schools to host a night called “Countdown to Kindergarten” to provide Boston’s incoming Kindergarteners the resources needed to adjust to the first day of school. A few hundred children about to enter kindergarten met the Mayor and the Superintendent, practiced educational activities they would learn in school, rode on an actual school bus, received welcome gifts, and listened to stories about the kindergarten experience. This event has continued to date and is now known as the City-Wide Kindergarten Celebration.

During the early 2000s, Countdown to Kindergarten was the leading source of information for families preparing for kindergarten in Boston Public Schools (BPS). Major news outlets, like the Boston Globe, were used to spread awareness about the city’s initiative and introduce Countdown’s various programming for families offered throughout the year to ease the BPS registration process. C2K-sponsored activities included School Previews; where families could get a head start by visiting schools before the registration period, and the Annual School Showcase; a fair-style event where families could explore all the BPS schools and receive informational booklets.

Countdown to Kindergarten gets established at City Hall as an official program of the City of Boston, creating a Steering Committee, and hiring the first C2K leader: Laurie Sherman, Countdown Leader and Policy Advisor for Mayor Menino. A mission statement, goals, and values of Countdown to Kindergarten were all defined.

Mayor Menino signed an executive order allowing full-time city employees four hours of paid time off to visit Boston Public Schools, called “Open Schools Time” – a part of Countdown’s initiative to introduce BPS schools to parents and help ease their fears about the complicated school registration process. The benefit served about 12,000 city workers who live in Boston, 2,400 workers at FleetBoston, and 1,800 at UMass Boston. This School Preview Time initiative for City workers continued through Feb. 8, 2002.

The iconic bright yellow Countdown to Kindergarten T-shirts proclaiming “I’m Going to Kindergarten” were handed out to all incoming BPS Kindergarteners for the first time. Children were encouraged to wear them to the celebratory event at Boston Children’s Museum. Additionally, wearing the yellow t-shirts in the weeks leading up to the start of school would entitle children to congratulatory and educational gifts at more than 100 businesses during “Kindergarten Days,” as well as free entrance to museums around the City of Boston.

As part of the Countdown to Kindergarten initiative to help Boston parents choose a Kindergarten and become involved in their children’s education, WBZ-TV anchor Liz Walker hosted an informational video titled, “Kindergarten, Here We Come,” for parents on how to prepare their children for the first years of school. The video included interviews with teachers, principals, and students and offered health and safety tips for parents of 5-year-olds. The program was aired on cable television on the Boston Channel and was shown at public library branches, health centers, community centers, and parent information centers.

Countdown to Kindergarten released information about “Kindergarten Days,” where more than 100 businesses joined to support Boston’s youngest learners by offering gifts and discounts on things like clothes, haircuts, school supplies, ice cream and more. Taking place during the five days before Boston Public Schools Kindergarten started, incoming Kindergarteners were encouraged to get to know their local businesses and communities better and meet new classmates’ families.

The BPS Department of Early Childhood was established in 2005 by Mayor Menino and then-Superintendent Thomas Payzant with the vision of preparing all children with a strong and early start to their formal education. Fitting within this vision due to its programming, Countdown to Kindergarten was moved from City Hall to BPS. Learn about the decade-long effort to reshape the scope, direction, and quality of the Boston Public Schools’ early childhood programs in the book Children at the Center.

Countdown to Kindergarten Playgroups were piloted in 2006 at the West Zone Early Learning Center in Jamaica Plain to consistently bring together caregivers and their children in Boston for 1.5-2 hours per week. The goals of C2K’s Playgroups in the pilot stage were to provide and model developmentally appropriate experiences to increase school readiness, facilitate social networking for families, and connect families to community resources. C2K Playgroups have expanded since, providing hundreds of families across Boston’s neighborhoods with a platform to learn kindergarten readiness skills through play.

Over 40 volunteers from Jumpstart, Generations Incorporated, Boston Partners in Education, Boston Cares, and BPS assembled more than 6,000 “Welcome to BPS” gift bags, courtesy of Countdown to Kindergarten, for families of new BPS Kindergarteners full of useful information about the transition to kindergarten and fun gifts for kids and parents. The gift bags were made available to new BPS Kindergarten students at the Family Resources Center in January, when school registration began, for students entering BPS in September 2007.

Kindergarten Days, also know as K Days, which started as parades across Boston’s neighborhoods, transitioned to parties hosted at Boston Public Library branches across the City. These celebrations incorporated kindergarten readiness activities along with fun games and entertainment. K Days continue to be an annual opportunity for children to receive their yellow T-shirts and Welcome Bags.

Play-to-Learn groups became an official part of Countdown’s programming after being successfully piloted the previous year. Mayor Menino, Countdown Staff, and BPS Early Childhood staff joined families to celebrate by readings stories and partaking in school-readiness activities.

Countdown to Kindergarten released it’s first “Summer Steps for Readiness”, a calendar of free summer activities around Boston to help incoming BPS Kindergarteners prepare for the upcoming school year. A DVD titled “I’m Ready!” included key messages to help children and families prepare for Kindergarten.

Mayor Menino declared November 12th as “Talk, Read, Play Day” in Boston as part of a new public awareness campaign fronted by Countdown to Kindergarten and ReadBoston focused on the role of parents and their responsibility as their child’s “first teacher,” from birth until age 5. The celebratory date was aimed at reminding parents of the simple but overlooked ways they can improve their child’s educational outcomes before formal schooling by talking, reading, and playing.

Boston Children’s Museum opened a new exhibit called “Countdown to Kindergarten” – a model classroom designed to help children and their families prepare for school. The exhibit allows children to become familiar with a classroom setting through activities like packing a backpack and gathering for storytime. The museum also provides families with resources to support and advocate for their young learners. The Countdown to Kindergarten classroom has been a permanent exhibit at the museum since.

After being piloted within a Playgroup classroom at Trotter Elementary School the previous year, the “Flash, Rhyme, Mob” went public and citywide for the first time. During this event, childcare providers and children recited rhymes and poems and sang songs at different locations across the city simultaneously to uplift the “Talk” portion of the Talk, Read, Play campaign. This event continues to happen annually in April during the Week of the Young Child and brings together children from all over the city to share the joy of talking and singing.

Family Play Week was designed and piloted with families, First Teacher, Boston Children’s Museum and Northeastern Crossing in the summer of 2016. It consisted of a 5-day program where 16 families were able to make connections and build community through the lens of play-centered learning, including field trips to Boston Children’s Museum, Castle Island, and The Discovery Museum. Inspired by literature that underscores the critical importance of play in the development of strong connections between young children and their primary caregivers, Family Play Week was designed to offer play experiences and hands-on learning during the summer, which are usually not readily available to families living in urban environments. Family Play Week continues to be held every summer and has grown to three weeks, including one week that is exclusively for Spanish speakers.

Countdown to Kindergarten partnered with the Franklin Park Coalition to offer bike and trike activities for children ages 5 and under at the 50th annual Kite & Bike Festival in Roxbury. Attendees were able to try out a special BPS Countdown to Kindergarten biking/walking track. Countdown continues to provide bikes for young children to try at the annual Kite & Bike Festival every May.

During the pandemic, Countdown to Kindergarten received funding from the Lego Foundation to initiate a Parent Partner paid role to help deploy the work of C2K and the BPS Department of Early Childhood in the community. Every year, C2K supports the Department of Early Childhood to bring parent partners into all aspects of the Department’s work.

During the pandemic, Countdown hosted a Social Justice Literacy Series for 8 weeks over Zoom with 8 different “Literacy Superheroes” who were chosen to share a story based on their advocacy for literature and community leadership. Over 300 children under the age of 5 joined the series and received a book and activity kit delivered to their home so they were able to follow along with the readings. Following the reading for each week, the children engaged in conversations about social justice with Countdown leaders.

Countdown to Kindergarten, BPS Parent University and Read Boston partnered with I-Can Academy to launch a pilot program, “Dads Read Too,” – a restorative justice program aimed at engaging incarcerated fathers and their children in play-based and school-readiness activities focused on literacy as a way to build rapport with their children. “Dads Read Too” created non-judgmental spaces within the institutions through contact visits, where dads could share and model their knowledge of play with their children. Books and activities were provided for the child and parent to explore during the visits.

Boston Saves, a children’s savings account program that helps families of BPS students save and plan for their children’s college or career training from Kindergarten onward, was moved under Countdown to Kindergarten as part of C2K’s work to help children and their families successfully transition to BPS Kindergarten.

During the 2024 Week of the Young Child, Countdown hosted their annual Flash, Rhyme, Mob, in which about 1,400 Boston preschool children participated citywide, reciting rhymes, poems and singing songs at different locations across the city at the same time. The Flash, Rhyme, Mob was piloted 10 years prior in a BPS classroom and has since gone citywide and grow in popularity!