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Educational help for Parents, Students, and Teachers!
How to help your child with Separation
Separating from parents, family members or caregivers to attend school all day can be stressful on children and adults.
Prepare yourself and your child by talking about it months before school starts. Explain to your child what will happen. Routines are the key word here. Bedtimes, eating, preparing for your day, after school routines and evening routines. Take your child to visit the school. If possible more than one time would be beneficial. Meet with the teacher AND your child together so they are not strangers. If you can go play at the school in the afternoon or during the summer so it is a familiar place. Talk about bus riding or being dropped off. Talk about the classroom and friends at school. If your child knows other children that will be going to the same school mention this. School should be a safe comfortable place. Preparing yourself and your child will make transitions smooth. Do not be afraid to talk to the teachers through lines of communication if you have questions.
Many books are available to read or watch on youtube that are for your child to mentally prepare. Youtube read aloud books are great!
Following Rules
There are many rules for your kindergartener to follow at school. Teaching them about rules and that it is important to follow them. The teacher will spend a lot of time in the first weeks going over them. It is important for your child's success to understand there are rules to follow at school for the good of everyone. I've listed some tips here and there are many great books and videos for you and your child to go over together. Setting home and family rules is a good way to start to teach your child about rules. When they enter school they will be use to following rules to maintain order so students will have adequate instructional time. Rules are often posted in the classroom. Kindergarten teachers use visuals to show rules as well. Below is one example. You can also use the books list to look them up on youtube read alouds for your child to watch and listen to. This is good practice for following rules that require sitting and listening.
Again helping your child become familiar with these routines they will encounter in school will make the transition much easier.
Learn with Ocean Winds Learning (OWL)
Being able to Control Yourself
When your child enters Kindergarten there are a lot of other children and situations they encounter. It can be overwhelming for the child at times. Teaching self control and learning to self regulate will help them to be successful in school. It really is a lifelong skill everyone of us will need in life.
There are many many resources available on this subject in the form of books, videos, and curriculum on the internet and book stores. Pick and choose according to what you think will benefit your child. What I add here is just a small part of it.
One of these videos is about emotions so kids can learn to identify them. It's very entertaining and kids love it (Garcia, Inside out: Guessing the feelings. - youtube 2016).
Help your child identify their feelings and come up with strategies to help them practice self control. Some of it will come with age but even five year olds can learn breathing and time out strategies to help them. Here is a link to a great article. Also check out Ocean Winds Learning webpage to see more great videos to share with your child. These will open discussions with your student.
About Me:Debra Leanderson M.Ed. BA ed, AA ECE
Debra Leanderson
Debra Leanderson M.Ed.
I hold an Associates of Arts degree in Early Childhood Education, Bachelor of Arts in K-8 Education, Master’s
in education Learning and Technology. I taught as a homeschool parent for 15 years and a preschool teacher for 8 years including Montessori education method. I then taught as a paraeducator for 6 years in elementary through middle school. I currently teach K-5 elementary school grade levels.