It’s hard to believe that school starts here in Atlanta in a couple of weeks. Already there are back to school sales and all the office supply stores have their back to school displays front and center. Are you ready to have your children back into the school day routine? Maybe a better question is: Are your children ready? Did they have school work to complete over the summer? Do you know if they have finished it? If your children are in elementary school it’s a good idea to begin reviewing some of those math facts – addition, subtraction, multiplication tables and division. Another thought is to encourage your children to read for half an hour to an hour each day. Maybe they can read aloud to you while you are preparing dinner?
Is your home ready for school to start? Have you gone through last year’s school papers? If not there’s no time like the present. Have your children go through the papers (including art work) with you. Weed out everything that is not crucial to keep. So, what should you keep? Keep the best of the best – whatever that means for your child. Do not keep the daily worksheets. Think about what is meaningful – you know, the creative works, not the papers that show your child simply reciting back facts. Keep an awesome book report or a research paper. Maybe keep a mobile. You and you child can figure it out together. It’s important, though, that you make room (lots of room) for this school years papers to begin coming home. Do you have a central collection point for these papers? Maybe you should have one spot for each child? If you have wall space you can attach magazine holders to the wall – one per child, labeled with the child’s name – as a collection spot. If you start thinking about these things now when school starts you will be prepared and your child will know exactly where to put these papers!
Since summer schedule is often more relaxed your child may be accustomed to going to bed late and also sleeping late in the morning. If this is the case, you may want to start now to ease them back into a regular school time routine. Find out what time the bus will be picking up your children. Then figure out what time they will have to get up in order to have some breakfast before they catch the bus. Finally, set bedtime a little earlier each night and get them up a little earlier each more so that they can be accustomed to that routine before school starts. This will make for a much easier transition back to the regular school day routine.