Advise needed & Things your child needs to know for Kindergarten

Many of you know that I opened a daycare in my home about a year ago. I like to work on literacy (of course) as well as counting, sequencing and social skills but sometimes it's really hard to know if your covering everything that needs to be done (besides teaching them NOT to hit, fight, scream, throw tamper tantrums or let someone walk all over them!). 

I've been looking on Pinterest for some fun alphabet ideas and came across the "I Can Teach My Child" blog and she has WONDERFUL ideas. I thought I'd share 2 posts in particular. I'm going to print them off and put them on the fridge when I get home....

 

and

and this leads me to....

What advise do you have for preparing preschoolers for Kindergarten (especially ideas for teaching BOYS that need to learn to listen and follow directions)? One of the little guys (he's 5 1/2) in my daycare is very analytical and gets VERY focused when he is watching movement like water flowing, pouring, spinning, etc (no he's not autistic) and he keeps following the flow of the water... and somehow he totally tunes out his environment.

Any thoughts on correcting this behavior? School is going to be a true struggle if he doesn't get past this... I've started giving him timeouts each time he doesn't answer when I ask him a question (a pet peeve of mine as I feel it's a little disrespectful when I know he hears me and chooses to ignore me). I'd like some other ideas for working on this issue.

For the next month we are going to focus on following directions (playing games, etc) and Listening with 2 Ears. Any advise would be great appreciated!