Hi, guys! Welcome back to my channel. In today's video, I'm going to be talking to you about
preparing your child for being at school, and things I've done to get my son Caleb ready
to start [inaudible 00:00:09].
I had actually hoped to get this video out about a month ago, but we went on holiday,
and time ran away with me. I still think it's worth making, with just two weeks before my
children start school.
It just might make you think of a few last-minute things you want to teach your child, or something
you've forgotten to get, so I hope you really like it, and if you do, please give it a thumbs-up,
and if you're new, I'd love for you to subscribe to my video.
My first tip you have probably done, if your children are starting in 2018. That that is
to go to all of your children's settling in visits and Meet the Teacher nights. This,
of course, just makes your child familiar with the school, and where we live in the
UK, they also do home visits, which are optional.
But Caleb's teacher actually came to our house to visit. She probably got so much insight
into his life, that he's got these two brothers, and where he lives, and Caleb was so excited
to show her his room. And I think it made him feel really, really comfortable with her.
Next up, make sure you have all the school uniform that you're going to need for your
child. We're very lucky in the UK that children wear uniforms to school, and I was therefore
given a checklist of everything that I needed to buy for Caleb. And I've just gone ahead
and ordered that, and made sure every single thing is labeled, even down to socks.
From my experience with my older son, I know that almost everything goes missing, and you'll
want to have their name on it. I will link the labels that we used down below. I think
they were from a website called Easy to Name, but they have his name on it, and they even
have my mobile number on it, and they're sticky. So you don't have iron them in, you don't
have to sew them in, you can just stick them into the tags, and you can wash them as normal,
and they stay there.
Make sure you have a trial run of them putting the whole uniform on. Just make sure it all
fits, do you need to take up trousers, do you need to alter anything? And I made sure
that I bought the Velcro shoes. Because he's still only four, he will need to be able to
put his own shoes on, so make sure they are Velcro.
If you already made the mistake of getting lace-up shoes, don't worry. These are these
amazing elasticated laces that you can get, so you can take out the lace that has come
with the shoe, if your children don't know how to do them up yet, and you can replace
it with an elastic lace, and therefore, they can then open them up, slip them on, and then
they sort of tighten up again. So that's a really good hack.
But also, we have got all of the boys' lunchboxes and cups, as well, and we involved them in
buying these. So we took both of the boys out to the supermarket, and they chose. Fraser
has this crocodile alien thing, and it came with a cup, and Caleb chose Avengers, and
I really like these lunch bags with the cup on the side. Because then the cup is not in
with the food, and it won't leak on the food.
Another really good tip is to make sure that your children can open all of the Tupperware,
that you're going to send in with them, so this will be for a snack for Caleb, and I've
already asked him to try and open this, and he can easily open this. There would be nothing
worse than for them to get to snack time, or to lunchtime, and then have to wait for
their teacher to come around and open it for them.
As you can imagine, there's like, 30 children in a class, and that would be really difficult.
So make sure that they can open everything that you send them in with, and label it.
You must label it.
While we're talking about clothes, it's also a really good idea to make your children as
independent as possible when it comes to getting dressed. Can your child dress themselves?
Caleb was struggling with one thing, and that was to put on his socks.
All summer, we've been practicing putting on socks, and he's there now, he can do that.
But also, can they put on their shoes on the right feet? Can they put on a winter jacket
by themselves, and do it up?
Fraser does this really cool hack, where he puts the hood of his winter jacket on the
front of his face, and then he swings it around, and puts his arms through. We also got really
simple winter coats that just have a few buttons on the outside, so that he didn't have to
fiddle with zips, or anything like that. There would be nothing worse than being desperate
to go out for play, but having to wait for a teacher or someone like that to do up their
zip.
My next tip is to help your child be as independent as possible when it comes to toileting. Now
this is something that I didn't really like to think about. They still seemed so young
to me, and like they would need help, but at school, when a teacher has 30 children
to be looking after, they cannot help every child on the toilet. So you must make sure
they are capable of going into the toilet, and pulling their trousers down, going to
the toilet, wiping, flushing and washing their hands.
Caleb's struggle is to remember to flush, so we've really been focusing on that, and
also, practicing wiping, and also, just talking about the importance of hygiene. Caleb actually
really likes to wash his hands. We have really lovely smelling soap.
I buy candy-smelling soap for the kids, and he loves using that, so that's not a problem.
And we talk about how the germs on your hands can make you sick, so I'm not worried about
all that. It was more the wiping and the flushing, so it's just worth thinking about all of those
stages, and just really realizing that they won't have help on the toilet.
You really need to get them confident, because you don't want them to feel embarrassed at
school, and same goes for making your children independent when it comes to mealtimes. If
your child is planning to have school dinners, teach them how to use a knife and fork, or
at least a fork, or a fork and a spoon, just anything but their hands.
Again, talk to them about the importance of washing their hands before they eat, and even
practicing pouring drinks, because I know some schools have that. If you plan to send
your child to school with a packed lunch, again, make sure they can open all the containers,
and also, put a straw into a juice box, if they're going to have that as well.
Again, teachers are just so busy, and even though there are people helping out at lunch,
it'll be so much nicer if they can just get on and eat their dinner. There's also a few
other things I wanted to share with you, that we've been doing with Caleb through the summer
months, to make sure he remembers what he learned in preschool, and can take that through
to reception.
But I wouldn't want worry too much about this bit, because all children learn at different
rates, and Caleb is one of the eldest in his year. He is an October baby, so he is very
ready for school, and he's kind of done a whole year of preschool up until now. But
we have been practicing his numbers and phonics.
I've got these two huge posters from [Howland 00:06:29]. I think they were a pound for both
of them, and they've been brilliant. This one is all the numbers from one to 100. We
keep it under his bed, and then at night, after we've read our books, we will go through
all the numbers. He really loves reading all of the numbers to me. He can do one to 100.
The only ones he ever struggles with are the teens, so he really struggles with the numbers
13, and 15 as well. He always "fiveteen" for 15. Yeah, if you can get your child to be
able to count to 20, chances are, they will then be able to count to 100, because it's
a very similar kind of pattern.
The same goes for phonics. We've got this one there, and it just goes through the phonics,
so we'll just go through A for Airplane, just go through all of them, and just make sure.
There's a couple that he struggles on here, as well. He struggles with M and N being the
same, D and B, as well.
One thing that I do, I don't know if this is right, but if I take one of Caleb's favorite
books, and then I'm reading the story. If we get to a small or short word, and I know
that he kind of already knows the story, I'll say to him, "What is this word?" Because he
kind of knows the story, he's able to say it, and I believe it's building up his confidence,
and he can sound out a few things.
That's his favorite word to say, "poo," and he can kind of easily sound like that. But
also, words like cat, mum, bull, simple words like that, he can kind of read already, so
that's great. But also, thinking about how they hold their pencil. Can they use scissors?
Do they know colors? Things like that all helps.
Another really good tip is to make sure your child can recognize their name, if it's written.
Their name will probably be on labels for hooks, books, self-registration, and other
things as well, so it's really important they know their name, and what it looks like.
It's also great if they can write their name themselves, or at least the first letter.
When we were teaching Caleb how to write his own name, we used to do a dot to dot thing,
and he really enjoyed doing that.
My next tip is to make an effort with the parents of the other children in your child's
class. Now, this may not come naturally, and you don't have to best friends with anyone,
but this can be so useful. In my elder son's year, what we did is set up a Facebook group
for all the mums and dads of that year, and it has been so invaluable.
I prefer it to a WhatsApp group, because I feel like on a WhatsApp group, it's all the
time, and it can be all-consuming. But on a Facebook group, you can just post in there
if you need to. You know, "is it today that's the non-uniform day?", "When's the school
trip?", and you'll always get an answer from all the other parents, so that has been really,
really good.
There may come a time in the future when you need someone else to pick up your child, because
you're stuck in traffic, or something like that, so it's really good to have a few close
friends.
We've also been working on Caleb's sharing, listening and manners too. Now, Caleb is one
of three boys, so he's very used to having to take turns, but there are some great turn
taking games that you can play, and there's also some great listening games, like Simon
Says, which Caleb loves to play.
They have to listen and then think about what you've said, and also, manners. We're trying
to just drum that into him, because I think that will go a very long way. When it comes
to school, if he can ask nicely to go to the toilet, or put his hand up nicely, as well.
We also like to play school, so just do some role playing with some stickers. I'll sit
on the chair as the teacher, and then the kids will sit on the floor, and we'll just
play school, and they absolutely love it. It's just great practice.
The last thing that I wanted to say is, be as positive and strong as you possibly can
be. Our children look to us for reactions, and if they see that we are getting upset,
or that we want to crumble and cry, because they're no longer babies anymore, that could
cause them some anxiety.
Just try and be excited about this next chapter for them, and then, once you drop them off,
cry your eyes out. But, yeah, talk about it, but again, don't talk about it all the time
nonstop.
So, yeah, I wish you luck. I will be in tears on the first day, as well, and yeah, thank
you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this, and I'll see you in my next one. Bye,
guys!