When your child transitions from kindergarten to school, it is an exciting process for the whole family. It is not for nothing that there are beautiful new school supplies and often even a 'SchultĂĽte' (school cone) for this special day. Before it starts, both the child and the parents are excited about what school will be like. To make things a little easier for your child with the new tasks at school, here are a few tips:
Emotions and social relationships
Playing is one of the main activities for a child. But playing is not just fun; the child learns a lot for the future along the way. You should always ensure that they get enough time for it, as this helps the child with emotions and social relationships in everyday life:
- Acquiring skills and abilities through play and processing feelings
- Managing conflicts
- Developing perseverance, concentration, and a good work ethic
- Learning social manners
- Developing motor skills and a healthy body awareness
- Processing impressions
Many things are also acquired for school; for example, a child learns about quantities and measurements while playing with sand and water. When playing ball, children learn to coordinate hand and eye movements, which will later be important in school for writing and reading.
How to support your child:
- Give the child free space to play
- If they are immersed in a game, let them finish playing
- Enable playing with other children
- Support your child's urge to explore – collecting, sorting, trying things out, and much more.
- Let the child play outdoors often (ball games, playing in the sandbox, games with water, games with stones, and much more.)
Language and communication
Children learn a language at an astonishing pace and usually multiply their vocabulary in a short time. Your child needs good knowledge of the language of the country you live in so that they can receive a good education and make friends.
How to support your child:
- Do not correct your child, but instead repeat the child's sentence correctly
- Listen to your child attentively and let them finish speaking
- Take time for conversations with your child (about experiences, feelings, plans, or thoughts)
- Tell your child stories and read to them regularly (e.g., a bedtime story)
- Visit a library with your child and let them choose the books themselves
- Get down to the child's eye level and look at the child when speaking
Writing
Children find it exciting to be able to leave messages. To make it easier for your child to learn to write, here are a few playful tips for the beginning.
How to support your child:
- Provide the child with a nice assortment of pens, brushes, and paper
- Name letters by their phonetic sounds (e.g., Mama starts with an 'M', not 'EM'!)
- Keep or hang up the child's drawings and writing products (shows the child appreciation)
- Look at picture books with the child
- Paint stories
- Enable a playful approach to symbols and letters
Mathematics
In everyday life, your child is already often confronted with mathematics. After all, who built the tallest tower? Or '4 more sleeps until we go on vacation.' With even more tricks, you can help your child prepare for mathematics in school.
How to support your child:
- Let the child help in the kitchen (weighing, counting eggs)
- Set search tasks in everyday life (the scissors are in the 2nd drawer from the bottom)
- Building with blocks or train tracks
- Looking at the calendar together or reading times
- Tidying up toys, putting away cutlery
- Dice games
- Reading price tags or house numbers in everyday life
Exercise
Children like to move and always need to 'let off steam.' This improves their body control and strengthens muscles and joints. This is very important for your child and later physical education classes in school.
How to support your child:
- Pay attention to movement in everyday life (climbing stairs, walking shorter distances, and much more.)
- Enable your child to play outdoors daily
- Enable your child to ride a scooter, tricycle, balance bike, or bicycle
- Also pay attention to movement indoors: hopping balls, large boxes, mattresses, and much more.
Nature and technology
Children are naturally curious and good observers. Usually, parents are bombarded with many questions. Here, it is not only important that the children get an answer, but also that they can find out some things for themselves.
How to support your child:
- Spend a lot of time with your child in nature (ideally in every season)
- Support your child in exploring nature ('What is this flower called', 'Why are earthworms so useful', and much more.)
- Observe processes in nature (planting a flower or vegetable bed, planting pots on the balcony or windowsill, freezing and melting ice, and much more.)
- When going on trips into nature, take a magnifying glass, containers, or bags along and let them collect and observe findings (clover leaves, chestnuts, flowers, etc.)
- Also teach your child responsible behavior towards the environment (taking trash back with you or throwing it in the bin, not taking flowers and pussy willows in spring as they are food for insects, not just killing insects, and much more.)
Ethics, religion, and society
Both in kindergarten and in school, children encounter different attitudes and rules, as well as different cultures and religions. Children observe very closely and perceive how we treat each other. To ensure children interact with each other easily, there are a few tips you can consider at home.
How to support your child:
- Meet different cultures openly and inform your child (picture books, customs, getting to know food from other cultures, and much more.)
- Convey the basic understanding that every person is of equal value
- Show the child democratic attitudes, such as making decisions as a family, but also being allowed to contribute one's own opinion (e.g., when planning a vacation or organizing the weekend as a family)
- Let your child do small tasks at home, delegate a little responsibility (feeding a pet, clearing away plates, watering plants, and much more.)
- Give your child the opportunity to make their own decisions (of course, age-appropriate, such as what to wear, how much they want to eat, and much more.)
In the first few weeks of school, the child should be given time to get used to the other children, the teachers, and the building. The new schedule will also be a big change for your child. Just no stress – every child has their own learning pace and a different readiness to learn. Communication skills and independence also vary greatly among children. Of course, every child also has different interests, prior experiences, and talents.
The most important thing is that your child enjoys learning and does not struggle with it. Do not overwhelm the child with too strict daily schedules; especially in the afternoon, there should always be time for free play. Learning should not dominate the whole day either; pay attention to breaks and healthy learning units; often 5-10 minutes per day are enough to improve a small weakness. Afterwards, there should always be room and space for the child to let off steam and move – it is great if they can run around in the garden or on a playground.
Read also:Â Good Children's Games for Schoolchildren
Photo by Sabine, meinhaushalt.at
