Children grow up so quickly! Before you know it, it’s September and it’s time to help your children starting school for the first time. This is a major milestone in your young child’s life and a huge change to their usual routine. Starting school for the first time can be a daunting but exciting experience. Some children settle into going to school quite quickly, whilst others find it hard to leave their homes, where they feel comfortable and safe.
Tick Education have compiled some tips to help your children starting school for the first time. We hope these tips help prepare your child for learning, cope with new experiences and socialising with new people.
Begin teaching them
Even though they will be learning all of the basics within school, why not progress them further? A great way to help ease your child into the learning environment of a school is to start preparing them by teaching them the very basics of literacy and numeracy such as ABC’s, counting and simple spellings.
Play with them
Playing with your kids may not seem like the best way to prepare for school, however this is actually a very effective way to teach them basic social skills as well as other educational skills. Games such as shopkeepers are brilliant because they introduce them to social cues and interactions as well as improves their mathematical and logical ability.
Talk to them
Something as simple as regularly talking to your child and having conversations with them can help your children starting school for the first time. Ensure that you take your time to allow them to properly listen to you and give them plenty of time to respond, this will improve their ability to interact with others effectively if often practiced. The key to this is also listening carefully to what they are trying to say to you as it makes them feel important and therefore interests and excites them further.
Rehearse
By practising the school run and wearing the uniform, your child will feel much more comfortable by the time it comes down to actually starting as they are familiar with the route and the uniform. It can also help as getting a child excited to wear a uniform makes the entire experience much more enjoyable and will give them a feeling of being grown up. It is vital that your child feels comfortable and isn’t overwhelmed otherwise they may feel opposed to attending.
Prepare yourself
It will also be a big change for you as a parent, but there’s no need to stress. For most parents this is an emotional point in their journey however it is also a relief as you now have more time to focus on yourself and treat yourself. Some good ideas would be to find a hobby, visit friends or even just spend that time relaxing. You should take this well deserved time as a parent and care to your own needs after having focused on your children for so long.
Check out our other blog posts, full of hints and tips on www.tickeducation.co.uk/blog