Preparing for Back-to-School
Most children and parents only begin preparing for school during the summer a week or two before school resumes. However, the process of preparing for a new school year should not be left to the last minute. It is important to keep your child in the school mindset throughout the summer, which will help prevent brain drain and make the back-to-school transition seamless.
Parents should take a multifaceted approach to preparing their children for school. Most of all, it’s important to keep your child’s brain active during the summer to prevent brain drain. Make sure they exercise their brains by encouraging learning activities, such as reading or summer homework packets, to ensure that come the first day of school, they won’t be scratching their heads to complete tasks. Additionally, using the last few weeks of summer to ease children into their school-year routines will pay off in the long run. Don’t allow kids to stay up late or sleep in, so when their alarm clock goes off on that August or September day, it’s much easier to get up. With a full night’s sleep, they’ll be in a better mindset to tackle not only the first day, but the whole school year.
Summer should be the time of the year to develop any learning gaps that the student may have had the prior year. If their weaknesses were math and science, create activities and learning experiences that will improve these categories. Plan a trip to the science museum, enroll in online courses or work one-on-one with your child.
Working on your child’s weakness over the summer, in isolation, will enable your student to accomplish things they would not be able to accomplish during the regular school year.
After several weeks away from school, it can be a tough adjustment for children to go from sleeping in and seeing friends all day to waking up early and studying for tests. By keeping their brains sharp through academic search, children will be mentally prepared to complete tasks. A regular sleep schedule, an easy transition from summer to school, and establishing school-year routines early starts the year off on the right foot – meaning less headaches for you and your kids!
Riddle’s Rules
- Keep your children in the school mindset all summer long by doing regular activities to prepare them for school in the fall.
- Regulate sleeping schedules for children as the summer comes to a close, to help them feel well-rested on the first day of school.
- Establish school-year routines ahead of time to ease children out of their summer routines (or lack thereof).
- Utilize outside activities to work on problem subject areas during the year. Bring the content to life! Get outside and explore problem areas with your child in real, hands-on situations.