5 Top Tips For Helping Your Child To Get Ready For School
It really seems that kids are little babies one day and then the next they are at the age for starting school! So with this in mind it’s a good idea to look at preparing for school as early as possible to ensure as smooth a transition as possible.
Talk About The Change Coming Up Early & Regularly
The more time you give your little one to process the information and mentally prepare for such a big change the better for them. If they attend nursery then they will be briefed by the nursery staff and often taken in for a visit, especially if the nursery is attached to the school. It is an emotional time for them and this will intensify the closer it gets to the actual school start date.
Do Some Reading & Writing Work Before Hand
It can be really useful to do some regular reading and writing work in the months leading up to starting a new school for the first time. It doesn’t have to be extremely hard stuff and you’ll find most kids get a kick out of learning stuff and getting the positive reinforcement of getting it right, you can even make it a lot of fun by incorporating games and puzzles into the learning such as using something like an online word search maker to make simple searches to help them find and recognise words.
You can also do some reading and role-play game about starting school, there are plenty of books about starting school that are fun for you to read to your little ones and can get them in the mindset and also play little role-play games where you are the teacher and they are the school pupil and vice-versa to make it fun.
Take Them On Walks To The School To Get Them Aware Of The Route
It’s good and healthy to walk your kids to school. If you take them on the walking route they will get used to the route and the routine of getting up and going to the school. Not only the way there but seeing the building and the layout of the playground will mean that they know what the place looks like and you hopefully might find that they get excited about starting especially when they see all the older children playing around and having that fun and freedom that a large playground gives.
Arrange A School Visit & Ask To Meet The Teacher
Almost all schools will have a day or even a few days where you and your child will be able to see the school and visit the classroom and be able to meet the teacher who is going to be teaching them. This will get them used to the place and the staff and as well as this they and you will have the chance to ask any questions that may be bothering you about the change.
With all this planning the change to going to school should be a much more fluent one and the child should transition easily.
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.