Kindergarten teachers have a passion for early childhood education and development; our passion is resume compilation.

When you are seeking your next Kindergarten Teacher role, it is essential first to review a top-notch Kindergarten Teacher resume sample. You want to make sure your resume immediately sparks interest from recruiters and hiring managers (within 6 seconds actually, which is the average time it takes for someone to skim a resume and make a decision to shortlist or decline).

The role of a Kindergarten Teacher is quite diverse, educating kids in topics such as social science, natural science, art, music, literature, and even personal hygiene. The purpose of Kindergarten Teacher is universal though: to promote social, physical and mental development in children at an early age and build a strong foundation for their future lives.

Crafting a stellar resume document will seem much less of a challenging feat after working through our Kindergarten Teacher resume guidelines below.

What you can read in this article

Kindergarten Teacher Resumes

Create my Resume

(Free sample downloads are at the bottom of this page)

See also guides & samples for:

Kindergarten Teacher Resume Writing Guide

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information:
First Name, Last Name, Phone Numbers and Email Address and Location. Also include social media profile links such as Instagram, Linkedin, and Facebook.

2. Career Summary:
The introduction to your resume provides an outline of what is to come regarding your skills, accomplishments and working experience. A career summary could either be the first paragraph or the last paragraph a hiring manager ends up reading, so make it counts. Powerful action verbs, wow factors, and credentials should be incorporated into 4-6 lines, typed in bold, and also in a different font to grab the reader’s attention.

3. Qualifications Summary:
Unlike pre-school teachers or teaching assistants, Kindergarten Teachers require a Bachelor’s Degree in early childhood education (or related disciplines) to teach. Include accurate details regarding your qualifications (dates completed, qualification name, institution, and location).

4. Relevant Teaching Experience:
Previous experience in Kindergarten education is typically required to apply for jobs. Even if you are a complete newbie who has just graduated, you would have gained practical experience in a Kindergarten environment as part of your course curriculums. Stick to a resume length of no more than 2-3 pages and provide detail regarding work experience for the last 5-10 years. Any experience gained further back may be listed in a separate section merely indicating dates of employment, job title and company worked for. Brief sentences separated with bullet points would be the most advisable format for your experience section.

5. Other Employment Experience:
If this is your first role as a Kindergarten Teacher focus on elaborating on your practical training served at an Elementary School or Kindergarten Facility. Then you may include other jobs related to teaching and childcare, but not specifically in a Kindergarten setting. These could include, for example, jobs like part-time tutoring, a summer teacher’s aid role, study advisor, or substitute pre-school teacher position.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills:
Relevance is key to the skills section. Pick out the most essential skills mentioned in the job spec and align them with your competencies and abilities. This is referred to as Resume SEO and will ensure that your application passes through the screening bots and ATS platforms to be reviewed by a human eye.

7. Education/Licenses/Certifications/Relevant Coursework/Training:
An appropriate state license is required for all Kindergarten Teacher roles. Some licenses may be transferred across state boundaries, while others are only valid for that specific state you may be teaching in. Kindergarten Teachers are also expected to write industry exams and participate in state-approved internship and prep programs. List all credentials according to validation date, level, institution, and membership number.

What to Highlight in your resume

Kindergarten teachers instruct and develop children aged between four and six during their first years of school. Public and private schools' employ Kindergarten Teachers to provide foundation education to children that serve as the cognitive, physical, emotional, and mental building blocks in their future education.

What do you include in a Kindergarten Resume, considering the role may involve anything from nose-wiping, dealing with tantrums, and educating kids about basic math or color identification?

Let us unpack a few main highlights for a Kindergarten Teacher resume, that will provide recruiters, school principals, and school board members with sufficient information to make a hiring decision.

Firstly, explain the main functionalities (purpose) of your role and work setting. Kindergarten Teachers may specialize in specific subject matter such as art or music and may be employed at private schools and public schools. If you are teaching art, then list a few art-related points: working with clay, drawing with crayons, finger painting, or paper mache. If music is your discipline mention the instruments that you teach for instance drums, tambourines, flutes or guitars.

Secondly, comes your teaching methods. Explain to the reader how ‘’hands-on’’ you are as a teacher using games, props or excursions as part of your lesson plans. Now link these with an outcome, for instance, improving memory, boosting motor skills or building self-confidence in your class members. You could mention things like lesson planning, creating games, organizing excursions or guests (fireman, policeman, nature guide) to visit the class and talk about their careers.

Then, touch on discipline, mentoring and guidance. As a Kindergarten Teacher you would be expected to instill general rules of acceptable social behavior, personal hygiene, table manners or social skills. Explain the methods you use to reprimand or discipline your class to correct inappropriate conduct or motivate and inspire self-confidence and trust.

Next on the list is your technical competencies, which may be roughly divided into the following categories:

Education and Training: Core technical skills would include adequate knowledge regarding the principles and methods for curriculum design, teaching to groups and individuals and measuring progress and development.
English Language: Linguistic skills pertaining to the structure and content of English as a conversational and written language would be to your advantage because you will teach your class the spelling and meaning of words, correct pronunciation, rules of sentence construction and grammar.
Psychology: Early childhood behavioral knowledge is critical in the job of a Kindergarten Teacher. Understanding individual differences in personality, ability, interests, cognitive ability, motivation, and learning scope helps teachers to identify issues and disorders timeously and suggest appropriate course of action. Assessments and evaluations form part of this area too, and you can mention the type of assessments tools you are familiar with to add extra credibility to your application.
Mathematics: A Kindergarten Teacher is also responsible for laying a mathematical foundation during early childhood education; therefore they need to be highly adept in mathematical principles but also be able to teach in a way that is palatable to young children and gives them the confidence to problem-solve.
Service and Guidance: As a Kindergarten Teacher you would be engaging with parents and guardians all the time providing progress reports, notifying parents of activities and facilitating PTA meetings with utmost diplomacy.

Next, describe the specific tasks or KPIs that you are responsible for. Due to resume length constraints, it can be tricky to decide which KPIs to include and which to omit. Refrain from generalizing and pick 5-8 specific duties that you do daily. Even easier, looking at your lesson plan themes for the year where you may find KPIs such as teaching children about colors, shape and number recognition, table etiquette, socializing skills, or personal hygiene practices. Think about the typical structure of your day; you may start the day with a song, a prayer or a story, followed by a lesson in math or science and then some in-class free play.

*Cool Tip for a stellar resume:

The classroom environment can be a wonderfully creative place. Showing off pictures of your classroom with all the props, bright colors, mentally stimulating tools, and vibrant atmosphere will give prospective employers a fantastic insight into the teaching environment that you provide to your class. Just refrain from posting any pics of the children! .

You can make a great first impression by including recommendation letters from teachers, parents, teachers, or thank you cards and drawings from previous learners to boost your suitability rating. Add them to Instagram, Pinterest, or create a class portfolio on Google Drive and include the links in your resume document.

Career Summary

Use a career summary to wow the reader with a snapshot of your experience, passion for children, and credentials. Take it up a notch by packing in a few measurable achievements.

School principals, school board members, and parent-teacher associations are responsible for hiring Kindergarten Teachers. Create a resume summary that captures their attention and interest immediately.

The How?

A neat trick is to mimic the wording from the job advertisement to better align your application with the role at hand. For example: if the job calls for empathy, passion and the ability to inspire learners, use these same phrases in your career summary. Then sprinkle in one or two outstanding qualities like you’re the talent you have to connect with disabled kids or to help struggling learners to improve their reading skills. For the ‘’finale’’ sentence in your career summary paragraph mention your highest qualification and licensing credentials.

Examples:

Career Summary 1

“NBC accredited Kindergarten Teacher with six years of experience and a proven record of improving reading and maths skills for remedial kids. Single-handedly raised parental satisfaction scores by 45% in a mere six months and spearheaded the yearly Christmas concert charity event raising 100k for the school. Currently completing a Masters Degree in Childhood Psychology and is also a Registered Play Therapist.“

Career Summary 2

“Enthusiastic entry level Kindergarten teacher straight from university achieving a summa cum laude result and also awarded student of the year by the Dean’s Golden Honours Society three years in a row. Reached 90% and above on all practical training attended at three different Kindergarten schools. Has two years experience as an Elementary Teaching Aid and further tutors mathematics to elementary school children during weekends.“

Career Summary 3

“Dedicated, tenured Kindergarten Teacher of over 15 years experience in developing academic ability and building characters of young minds. Acted as the driving force behind the ports and recreation program for the school and initiated the Young Engineers initiative where six-year-olds are introduced to the basic principles of mathematics and engineering through play therapy. Improved reading assessments scores by an average of 30% per learner and mathematical competencies rose by 20% per year for the last four years in a row. An adept user of digital and online teaching tools backed up with a Ph.D. in Early Childhood Development.“

Job Descriptions, Responsibilities and Duty Examples

A school principal or education board may expect certain foundational skills and job duties on a Kindergarten Teacher Resume. Below we have provided a lengthy generic list of responsibilities that may be customized and tweaked to fit your current and previous working experience

A Kindergarten Teacher may:

Design and prepare lessons for reading, mathematics, and social education programs
Compile and organize learning materials, props, and other educational resources
Apply various instructional methods for example storytelling, songs, structured games, outdoor activities, art and music to stimulate learners
Teach numeracy and alphabet literacy, along with emotional. Social and interpersonal skills
Maintain open lines of communication with parents and provide regular month feedback through assessments and reports
Teach table manners, personal hygiene, and routine tasks
Conduct group activities like excursions, inhouse games, and outdoor games
Strictly adhere to all safety and health regulations
Responsible for the mental and physical development of learners
Maintaining accurate records regarding children’s behavior, tests and assessments
Cultivate a vibey, positive classroom atmosphere
Teach children how to be respectful to others and nip any signs of bullying in the bud immediately
Conduct weekly pop quizzes to determine the learners understanding of the work handled during the week
Present extra-curricular reading and maths classes to remedial learners
Organize concerts, functions and charity events
Spearhead Individualized Education Plans together with the school board members and other teachers
Adhere to Core State Standards for all curriculum planning exercises
Implemented the tiny tennis league initiative
Introduce children to nature and conservation by facilitating month excursions to the nature reserve
Foster collaborative relationships with families, guardians, parents, occupational therapists and psychologists to ensure a cohesive development effort for children with learning disabilities
Encourage an interactive learning process at home by presenting workshops to parents and guardians on childhood development

Highlight Your Accomplishments

Accomplishment statements are essential to a Kindergarten Teacher’s resume. The aim of accomplishments statements is to showcase your ability to teach, coach, support and guide learners and shape young minds. Quantification of accomplishment statements helps to elevate their impact therefor include numerical values, percentages, scores, numbers, frequencies, and time frames in your statements.

You should pick 3-5 accomplishments/achievements that you feel would set you apart from the rest of the applications. If you are struggling a bit at first try to think of your proudest career moments that generate significant benefits for the learners you were responsible for. Add an action verb or two that will enhance the impact of the statement.

Accomplishment Statement Examples:

Eradicated bullying incidents (biting, hitting) entirely within the space of six months after introducing the back a buddy program
Received commendations from all five board members during the bi-annual performance appraisal achieving a 95% rating
Improved parent satisfaction scores by 32% for both the 4year old and 5year old classes
Instrumental in raising school readiness scores which resulted in each learner progressing to grade 1 in the following year
Revamped classroom layout according to Zen principles which resulted in a 20% improvement in memory retention for learners with ADD
Raised 100k for the school's new recreation center by organizing monthly entrepreneurship events like market days and sports fundraisers

Kindergarten Teacher Education Section Example

The education section should be comprehensive regarding all qualifications, certifications, and courses completed (in this case more is more).

Your post-school qualifications may be listed as follows:

Start with indicating the start date and completion date for diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor degrees followed by the full qualification and institutions attended. You can also add the location and state name especially concerning licenses and accreditations which may be state-specific. If you have less than five years experience, add your High School details too and spice it up a bit by mentioning GPA scores, extracurricular activities, academic honors awards, and leadership roles.

A Kindergarten Teacher’s education section example:

2019 Master’s Degree in Elementary Education and Children’s Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI

2017 – Teacher Preparation Program, University of Arizona, AR
Course Curriculum: Child Behavior, Educational Psychology
Children's Literature, Child Development
Practical Training: Three semesters of classroom teaching hours completed

2014 – Praxis Parapro Assessment Certification, Capitol Region Education Council (CREC), Hartford, CT
Score: 590 points

2013 – Early Learning Program Accreditation, National Association for the Education of Young Children, Ashford, CO

2012 – Member, National Kindergarten Alliance, Online

2016-2018 Bachelor Degree in Early Childhood Education, University of Florida, Tampa, FL

Skills Section

It is a given that Kindergarten Teachers should have a passion for children, be their role models, enhance their learning and development and also act as primary figures of authority to make them feel safe and nurtured. All of these require various interpersonal skills, but also technical capabilities. A smart way to start off your skills section is to ‘’personalize’’ the multiple roles you play during your teaching day.

Instructor: Teaches class social, physical and mental skills. Instruct learners in mathematics, reading, music, and art. Facilitate practicing of skills and prepare learners for the first grade of elementary school.
Disciplinarian: Enforce rules of acceptable behavior and reprimand and course-correct actions of learners where needed. Provide boundaries and a routine environment.
Private Tutor: Assist children with learning difficulties after class on a one on one basis to improve work comprehension and conduct extra revision activities.
Counselor: Soothe emotions, console and support learners who are vulnerable to the adjustment from pre-school to kindergarten. Listen to problems and help youngsters deal with their feelings of sadness, anger and self-esteem issues.
Nurse: CPR certified with basic knowledge of first aid to handle injuries occurring on the playground or in the classroom.
Cheerleader: Motivate, inspire and encourage learners to participate in classroom activities overcoming challenging tasks and improving self-worth to build inner confidence in their abilities.
Liaison: Communicate with parents and provide them with an open ear and support structure to help their children reach their true potential. Advancing parental involvement and collaboration in the child's education holistically.

The next part of the skills section is more focused on specific soft skills and technical adeptness. Don’t forget to include tools and tech summaries as well.

Using a lengthy list of bulleted skills will only take up precious white space in your resume. To counteract length constraints but still provide a comprehensive picture of your skills set, you may want to use a Skills Matrix (in this case three: one for interpersonal skills, one for hard skills and one for tools and tech.

Interpersonal Traits

Resourcefulness	Artistic
Diplomacy	Creative
Generous	Empathetic
Kind	Tactful
Patient	Intuitive
Communication	Cooperative
Expressive	Enthusiastic
Sociable	Engaging

Technical Competencies

Parent Interaction	Child Assessment
Lesson Delivery Platforms	Grammar, Spelling, and Sentence Construction Rules
Psychology	Teaching Plans
Progress Evaluations	Special Needs Education
Instructing	Report Writing
Test Compilation	Assessment Design

Tools & Tech Knowledge

PowerPoint	Google Docs
Power School SIS	Classkit
Blabber	Empatico
Blackboard	Whatsapp
Asana	Slack
Interactive Whiteboards	Digital Textbooks
Audio Enhancement Software	Smart Projectors
Springpad	Skype

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Kindergarten Teachers

Praxis ParaPro Assessment	Master’s in Business Administration	Diploma in Education Management
Bachelor of Special Needs Education	Diploma in Peer to Peer Learning Principles	BlackBoard Super User
Course in Differentiated Instruction Methodologies	Project Base Learning Diploma	Master’s Degree in Childhood Psychology
BED: Licensure: Elementary Education	Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST)	New Jersey State CEAS
Praxis® Core Academic Skills for Educators	NBPTS Early Childhood Art	M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction
K-6 level	New Jersey State CEAS	Member: Association of American Educators (AAE)
Praxis® Subject Assessments	MED: Curriculum and Instruction	NBC—NBPTS Early Child Generalist
Certificate in Differentiated Instruction	Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education	Various Educational Licenses (per state)

Professional information on Kindergarten Teachers

Sectors: Education, Training, Childcare
Career Type: Differentiated Instruction, Children-Centered Learning, Early Childhood Development, Peer-to-Peer Learning, Project-Based Learning
Person type: Supervisor, Cheerleader, Disciplinarian, Liason, Helper, Tutor, Counsellor, Coordinator, Instructor, Guide
Education levels: Bachelor’s degree and upwards
Salary indication: $47,597 and $68,167 (Study.com)
Labor market: Estimated 8% from 2018 – 2028 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Organizations: Private Schools, Public Schools, Charter Schools