Activities to help your child get school-ready

If starting childcare is a huge milestone in your child’s development, leaving it is even bigger.

Transitioning to school from childcare can be a tricky and anxious time for both parents and children. Whilst children worry about what life will be beyond the comfort of their childcare, parents want to know their child is prepared for the big move to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

As parents, you won’t be able to control every aspect of the move, but there are ways you can help prepare your child for what’s to come. In this blog we look at some activities that help build up essential skills required for your child to be school ready.

Social skills

Social skills provide the foundation for successful interactions and relationships in the classroom and beyond. When children start school, they need to navigate group dynamics, follow directions, share resources, and cooperate with peers and teachers. Strong social skills help children communicate their needs, resolve conflicts, and develop empathy, contributing to a positive learning environment.

Nature’s Point Transition to School Programme, and also earlier learning, has a strong emphasis on development of social skills. It is great to help children feel more secure. Here are some activities you can do at home that can help improve social skills:

• Play dates to allow children to interact with peers, share toys, take turns and practice communication skills. It’s a low-pressure environment where a child can learn to cooperate and resolve minor conflicts.
• Role playing and asking children to play out different scenarios can help build empathy and teach them how to deal with everyday interactions at school.
• Board games such as Snap or Memory are good for children to learn how to wait for their turn, follow instructions and handle winning or losing gracefully. They also help encourage patience and cooperation.

Motor skills

Developing fine motor skills is critical to school readiness. It involves coordinating small muscles in the hands and fingers to perform precise movements. Children need these skills for activities like writing and drawing, cutting and pasting and getting dressed.

Home activities that can help with fine motor skills development include:

• Drawing and tracing helps children improve gripping of pens and pencils. Using different tools required for drawing also helps enhance dexterity.
• Puzzles, especially small puzzles encourage children to use their fingers, improve concentration and problem-solving skills.
• Crafts such as playdough, beads, clay play, cutting with scissors, etc, help build strength in the hands, improve hand-eye coordination and dexterity.

Cognitive skills

Cognitive skills involve thinking, reasoning, memory, and attention, which are all essential for academic success and overall classroom performance. Activities to improve cognitive skills include:

• Counting and number games. Even simple maths tasks such as counting things around home, identifying house numbers etc can help develop an early sense of numbers. Basic addition and subtraction can also be done using objects around the house.
• Cooking and baking are great to get familiar with measurements, reading instructions and cause and effect.
• Reading not only improves literacy skills and enhance language, it helps with better memory and comprehension.

Emotional readiness and routines

Children need to be able to effectively manage their emotions, cope with new experiences, and form positive relationships with peers and teachers. Secure and confident children participate more fully in classrooms.

Equally critical for school-readiness are routines. They provide children with structure, predictability and a sense of security, all of which help them adjust to the structured environment of school.

Activities to help children become stronger emotionally include:

• Mindfulness activities such as deep breathing and guided imagery, both helping with self-regulation, particularly when situations get tricky at school.
• Encouraging independence by getting dressed themselves, tidying up or choosing their own play activities helps children feel more capable.
• Talking about emotions by discussing and naming them helps children build emotional awareness and express their feelings appropriately in a school setting.
• Creating a visual schedule to build routines is handy for children getting ready for school.
• Use timers and alarms at home to signal end of tasks and helping children transition between tasks.

To conclude

Incorporating different school readiness activities helps to encourage a positive and fun approach to school preparation. Not to mention, many of these activities also equip children with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in school.

Talk to our teachers at Nature’s Point on how we get our children ready for school and activities you can undertake at home to ensure your children handle the transition successfully.