How to prepare your child for school after vacation – daily routine and important rules

During 3 long summer months, children, regardless of who and where they are, get used to a free mode of sleep and rest, when you can go to bed after midnight, rest in the morning and eat normal food exclusively in between games. Naturally, the beginning of the school year becomes a cultural and physical shock for children: no one is able to quickly reorganize. As a result – lack of sleep, headaches, unwillingness to go to school, etc.

To avoid such overloads, you should start preparing for the school year long before September 1. Especially if the child is going to school for the first time.

The content of the article:

1. How to prepare a child mentally for school?
2. Daily routine and nutrition in preparation for school
3. Summer homework and review

How to mentally prepare a child for school – let’s get ready for the new school year together!

Is it necessary or not necessary to prepare the child for school? Contrary to the opinion of some careless parents, it is definitely necessary! If, of course, the physical and mental health of the child is important to you.

Timely preparation will allow you to avoid those popular problems that haunt the entire September of children who immediately stepped into school from a free, regimeless summer.

It is recommended to start such training at least 2 (or better three) weeks before the school line.

• We remove the interference. Not all children rush to school. It happens that for a child this is a reason to remember the problems that he will again face in the school year (self-doubt, unsupported mathematics, first unrequited love, etc.). All these issues should be resolved in advance so that the child does not have fears of school.
• We hang a funny calendar with a countdown – “until September 1 – 14 days.” Let on each piece of paper that the child tears off and puts in a daddy, he writes about his achievements for the day – “read the story for school,” “started to get up an hour earlier,” “did exercises,” and so on. Such a calendar will imperceptibly help you set your child up for school mode.
• Create a mood. Remember what your child loves most at school and focus on that. Prepare him for new achievements, communication with friends, obtaining new interesting knowledge.
• We create a schedule. It’s time to change summer habits. Together with your child, think over what time to leave for rest, and what time to review the materials passed over the past year or to prepare for new ones, what time to sleep, what time to walk and play, what time to exercise (you also need to prepare for physical activity !). The hand has probably forgotten how to write in a beautiful handwriting, and some columns have disappeared from the multiplication table. It’s time to tighten up all the “weak points”.
• We replace empty pastime (useless games on the computer and tomfoolery on the playground) with useful family walks – excursions, hikes, visits to zoos, theaters, etc. After each walk, be sure to make a beautiful presentation with your child (on paper or in a program) about a wonderful day together. Give your child a camera – let him capture the best moments of your family cultural holiday.
• We buy school uniforms, shoes and stationery. All children, without exception, love these moments of preparation for school: finally, there is a new knapsack, a new beautiful pencil case, funny pens and pencils, fashionable rulers. Girls are happy to try on new sundresses and blouses, boys – solid jackets and boots. Do not deny children the pleasure – let them choose their portfolios and stationery themselves. If the attitude to the form in most Russian schools is very strict, then pens and notebooks can be chosen based on their own wishes.
• Special attention to children if they go to 1st grade or 5th… For first graders, everything is just beginning, and the anticipation of learning can become too exciting, and for children who go to the 5th grade, difficulties are associated with the appearance of new teachers and subjects in their lives. It is also worth especially supporting the child if he is transferred to a new school – in this case it is twice as difficult for him, because even old friends will not be around. Set up your child to be positive in advance – he will definitely succeed!
• Wean your child off TV and computer with phones – it’s time to remember about improving the body, outdoor games, useful activities.
• It’s time to start reading books! If your child refuses to read the stories given in the school curriculum, buy him those books that he will definitely read. Let him read at least 2-3 pages a day.
• Talk to your child more often about what he wants from school, about his fears, expectations, friends, etc.… This will make it easier for you to “spread the straws” and prepare your child in advance for a difficult school life.

What not to do:

1. Prohibit walks and meeting with friends.
2. To drive the child for textbooks, against his wishes.
3. Overload the child with lessons.
4. Abruptly break off the usual summer regime and transfer to “strict” – with an early awakening, textbooks and circles.

Don’t overdo it in preparing for school! Still, the school year will begin only on September 1, do not deprive the child of summer – send him in the right direction gently, unobtrusively, in a playful way.

The daily routine and nutrition in preparing the child for school after the holidays

The child is not able to “spur” himself up and correct his sleep and nutritional regimen. Only parents are responsible for this moment of preparation.

Of course, ideally, if you can keep your child an adequate sleep schedule for the whole summer, so that the child can go to bed no later than 10 pm.

But, as life shows, it is impossible to keep within the framework of a child whose holidays have begun. Therefore, it will be necessary to return the child to the regimen, and this must be done with minimal stress for his psyche and body.

So how do you get your sleep back to school?

• If the child is used to going to bed after 12 (one hour, two …), do not force him to bed at 8 pm – this is useless. Some parents think the ideal way is to start raising their baby early. That is, even with late laying down – to raise at 7-8 in the morning, they say, “it will endure, and then it will work itself out.” Will not work out! This method is very stressful for the child’s body!
• The perfect method. We start gradually! In 2 weeks, but still better in 3 weeks, we begin to pack a little earlier every evening. We shift the mode back a little bit – half an hour earlier, 40 minutes, etc. It is also important to raise the child earlier in the morning – for the same half hour, 40 minutes, etc. Gradually bring the regime to the natural school and keep it by any means.
• Remember that your child in elementary school just needs to get a good night’s sleep. A minimum of 9-10 hours of sleep is a must!
• Find an incentive to wake up early. For example, some special family walks for which the child will get up early on their own and even without an alarm clock.
• 4 hours before bed, exclude anything that might interrupt him.: noisy games, TV and computer, heavy food, loud music.
• Use a sleep aid: a ventilated room with cool fresh air, clean linen, a walk and a warm bath before bedtime and warm milk with honey after it, a bedtime story (even schoolchildren love their mother’s fairy tales), and so on.
• Prevent your child from falling asleep under TV, music and light… Sleep should be full and calm – in the dark (at most a small night light), without extraneous sounds.

4-5 days before school, the child’s daily routine should already fully correspond to the school one – with getting up, exercising, reading books, walking, etc.

And what about the diet?

Usually, in the summer, children only eat when they drop by home between games. In any case, if no one drives them to lunch strictly on time.

Well, to be honest, all full-fledged nutrition schemes are crumbling under the onslaught of fast food, apples from a tree, strawberries from bushes and other summer delights.

Therefore, we establish a diet at the same time as a sleep!

1. Immediately choose the kind of diet that will be in school!
2. By the end of August, introduce vitamin complexes and special supplements that will add the child’s endurance for September, improve memory, and protect against colds, which begin to “roll in” in the fall on all children.
3. August is fruit time! Buy more of them and, if possible, replace snacks with them: watermelons, peaches and apricots, apples – fill your “storehouse of knowledge” with vitamins!

Homework for the summer and repetition of the material – is it necessary to study during the holidays, getting ready for school, and how to do it correctly?

Children, for whom September 1 is not the first time, were probably given homework for the summer period – a list of references, etc.

It is important to remember this not on the 30th of August, or even in the middle of August.

Beginning with the 1st of the last summer month, gradually do your homework.

• Spend about 30 minutes per day for lessons. An hour or more is too much for a child on vacation.
• Be sure to read aloud. You can do this in the evening while reading a book before bed. Ideally, role-reading with mom or dad will bring you closer to your child and help you overcome “literary” fears about school.
• If a child has new subjects in a new class, then your task is to prepare the child for them in general terms.
• Choose the same time for classes, develop the child’s habit to practice – it’s time to remember perseverance and patience.
• Conduct dictations – at least small, 2-3 lines each, so that the hand remembers what it is like to write with a pen, not a keyboard, in order to return the handwriting to the desired slope and size, to fill in the resulting gaps in spelling and punctuation.
• It will be great if you take care of your child and a foreign language. Today, there are many options for learning through play that a child will surely enjoy.
• If your child has real problems with teaching, then a month before school, take care of finding a tutor. It is advisable to find a teacher with whom the child will be interested in studying.
• Distribute the load evenly! Otherwise, you will simply discourage the child from learning.

September 1 should not be the beginning of hard labor. The child should wait for this day as a holiday.

Start family tradition – to celebrate this day with the family, and to give the student gifts in connection with the new school year.

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