I’m Rachel, and when I’m not running after my own 2 boys, or taking classes for The Mummas Village, you’ll find me in either the forest or reception classrooms as I’m a full qualified Early Years Teacher.

As parents, we all want the best for our children; It was only last September that my eldest started school himself, so I remember all too well the nervous excitement we all felt in the run up to the big day! In today’s blog, I’m going to share the activities and conversations I recommend starting to have now to help prepare your little one for starting school. We want to help you feel ready to support them emotionally as well as pass on some practical tips. We’ll be looking to develop and nurture skills that will help them to learn when they get into the classroom; I can guarantee that all the most important ways to support them, you will already be doing – reading books; chatting to them about their day; going for walks; playing games; going to the park – all the things that you’ve always done with them. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that if you don’t want it to be!

I’m going to kick things off with a few of the skills that as a class teacher, I always found it to be super helpful for children to have mastered in those early months at school. Let’s face it, in a class of 30, they are going to have to be a little more independent than they may be at home, so these are some practical skills that would be brilliant for them to be able to do. Don’t worry if your child hasn’t mastered these yet or even doesn’t by the end of the summer; each and every child does everything at their own pace and these are only suggestions, not necessities. Your child’s teacher doesn’t have a checklist! All of them are super easy to do in fun and interactive ways with your children over the summer holidays and definitely won’t feel like learning! No flashcards required!

×         Washing their hands well after going to the toilet or doing a messy activity.

×         Wiping their bottom after going to the toilet. (This we know is a tricky one for many!)

×         Opening their own water bottles and snack pots.

×         Putting their coat on, being able zip it up and turn the sleeves the right way round

×         Putting their belongings into their book bag and their PE kit into their PE bag.

×         Getting themselves dressed and undressed including putting their shoes & socks on.

×         Using Cutlery at mealtimes

×         Following simple multi step instructions

×         Being able to introduce themselves and recognise their name when written

You’ve identified some of the most useful skills for your child to master before starting school, and you’ve made a mental note of the ones you’d like to practise with them a little more, what now? Below you’ll find some of my favourite ways to do this that are simple, and should be really engaging for your little one:

Set them a challenge to see who can get dressed first – ideally with their new school clothes at some point too, Talk them through / show them how to put on the different items of clothing on, practise buttons on polo shirts and the Velcro on their shoes. Perhaps they could choose an outfit one day and put it on then do a fashion show for you?

×         Practise listening to and following instructions, school has LOTS of this!  Simon Says is a brilliant way to do this, or give them two step or more instructions when they’re helping around the house. Cooking and baking are a great way of helping with following instructions. In fact, helping in the kitchen is a brilliant activity to do to help in so many skills they will need at school!

×         Making introductions – they are going to be making new friends at school so it’s a good one to practise with them. They could practise a little sentence they could use, ‘Hi I’m Rachel, what’s your name?’ with their teddies and you could come up with funny names for them all to reply with together. They could also start to get familiar with speaking to adults, perhaps by saying hello to trusted or familiar people, greeting a shop assistant or librarian, saying good morning to people they pass on a walk or the postman or delivery drivers.

×         As we mentioned, being  able to recognise their name will also be really useful. They will see it on their belongings, on their coat peg, their tray, plus many other places. You could hide pieces of paper around the house with their name written on for them to search for, write the names of all the members of your family on a piece of paper multiple times and get them to find their name. Magnetic letters on the fridge / chalkboard are another good way of helping with this, they will love moving them around and spotting their name on there.

×         Rather than worrying about whether or not they can write their name or words yet, helping them develop their gross motor and prewriting skills is really beneficial. These activities can be done really easily;  air drawing; moving their arms in different directions; painting with water on a fence or wall outside; making circles, diagonal lines or zig zags to mimic the directions they will use when they do begin to write. Playing with playdoh and / or lego is also a really good way of strengthening the muscles in their hands which they will use when holding pencils.

×         If, and this is a big IF, your child is interested in letters and numbers, there are lots of fun ways to help them learn through play. My car obsessed boy absolutely loved a simple car park I made him on a piece of cardboard. I started off writing his name out, then jumbled up those letters before writing the alphabet out in the parking spaces. He would then park his cars in different letters, asking me what letters were and then as he got more familiar, I could ask him to park a car in a certain letter. We carried this on as he started learning phonics in Reception. Such a simple but effective activity that he then extended himself making his own car parks.

×         BOOKS! Always brilliant, and there are so many gorgeous books to share with your children to help them think about starting school. The classic ‘Starting School’ by Janet and Allan Ahlberg is always lovely with lots of pictures to start conversations. Usborne Books ‘Starting School’ sticker book is another nice way of familarising them with the concept of school in a fun way – who doesn’t love a good sticker book?

×         ‘Five Minute Mum’ Daisy Upton has also written a fab ‘Time For School’ book which is less about worrying about the academic side of starting school and more about preparing your child in many of the ways we are talking about here. I used it with my son last summer ahead of him starting school and it was brilliant, packed full of simple games and ways to help them prepare that are cheap and easy to do. She also has loads of free resources on her website and Instagram pages.

I also wanted to finish by briefly touching on sharing. We often think children should share, but really we’re asking them to give up something they really want. Would you want to hand over your phone to someone else when you’re mid scroll on social media in an evening? Rather than sharing per se, a good alternative (and often really the skills we are trying to develop) is to practise turn taking and using phrases such as ‘I’m playing with this now, when I’m done you can have a turn.’

That’s it for now from me, there’s more than enough to be getting on with! Hopefully this has given you some ideas for things to do with your almost Reception starter ahead of September and will have reassured you a little that you don’t need to be doing a lot of academic prep with them –leave that to the teachers and let them guide you in September for the best ways to support your child.

 I’ll be back later in the Summer with Parts 2 and 3 of this Reception Readiness series. I hope you all have lots of fun trying some of these ideas and activities and please do share with anyone else who might find it helpful. I’m going to be sharing more ideas over on my Instagram page @rachelatthemummasvillage so do follow along there and let me know how you get on, I would love to hear!

See you soon, Rachel x

P.S. Don’t forget to book in a school shoe fitting appointment and haircut! They always book up faster than you expect!