Caring for Preschoolers: School Readiness

Children are often excited and fearful about starting school. You can help to alleviate the fear by preparing the child about what to expect. Talk about going to school, encourage school-agers in your home to share what they like best about going to school, provide some props to ‘play school’ and get some library books about starting school.

The following activities will help to ease the preschooler’s transition from home to school:

• Teach children their first and last names as well as your name, address, and phone number. If they have difficulty memorizing the phone number try making it into a chant or song. It's more fun to practice and children learn more easily when they're having fun doing it.
• Get to know the school and school grounds. If the school is located in your neighbourhood, call and ask if you can all come to visit. During summer months take a walk to the school and let children play in the schoolyard.
• If the child will be bussed to school and has not travelled by bus before, plan some outings on a city bus.
• Reinforce and practice safety rules about crossing the street, talking to strangers, etc. If you have a Block Parent program in your area, talk to children about the program and point out houses in your area that participate.
• Practice self-help skills, especially dressing and undressing. They will be very important when a child starts school. With several children in each class, teachers have limited time to assist children who are unable to get their own jackets on and off or visit the bathroom unattended.
• Label a child's chair, coat hook, and artwork, with their name printed in clear letters to help with name recognition. If the child shows an interest, help them practice their printing skills.
  
  
  Encourage activities that familiarize children with letters, numbers, shapes, and colours. For example:
  
• Play simple counting games like counting the cars on the street, counting the apples in the bowl, counting fingers and toes;
• Practice colour recognition in everyday activities. Have children point out red foods, green foods, talk about the colour of clothes you're wearing;
• Take a walk through your house or neighbourhood and have children point out circle, square, triangular and rectangular shapes;
• Practice the alphabet song. To encourage children to make the connection between words we say and words we read, label common objects in your home (for example, table, chair, wall, door, telephone) and have children run, hop, or skip to the object whose name you call out and read you the label.

Additional Resource:
Growing Healthy Kids - Transition to School

This excerpt was taken from the Family Child Care Training Project Level 2 - Unit Three: Caring for Preschoolers.