Starting school is one of the significant milestones in a child’s life. As a parent, you want to make sure your little one is prepared for this significant transition and has an enriching experience. So how can you ensure that your little one is ready for school? What types of things can you do to adequately prepare children for this new, exciting journey?

School readiness is about more than just one’s academic skills. It also encompasses a child’s social and emotional readiness for this transition. It’s important that we help children develop other critical skills that will help them be successful in school and beyond. You can help your child develop the skills needed to be ready for school with these helpful tips!

Read and tell stories

It’s important to incorporate reading into your child’s daily routine. Carve out time to read together. You can make it fun by engaging children in the story and stimulating their imaginations. You can also encourage your little one to take on different parts of the story. Invite your child to share comments and ask questions about the characters and what might happen next. This activity helps build vocabulary and comprehension skills that will help your child learn to read independently later on.

Set up playdates

You can start by scheduling playdates for your child with friends or your neighbors’ kids. It’s essential that children have opportunities to practice and sharpen their social skills. These opportunities will help them build friendships both in and out of school.

Be sure to provide your kids with ample opportunities for social interactions. In addition to playdates, you might also consider enrolling your child in after-school programs, sports, or art classes, as these can help them connect with other kids who share similar interests.

Master the ABCs

Helping your child learn the alphabet goes beyond just teaching your child letters. It’s also about learning how to write letters and recognize words, phrases, and sentences, even if children don’t know how to read yet. You can start by printing some easy puzzles or showing kids flashcards of common words, objects, and mnemonics (like the days of the week or months of the year.) Other helpful items include school supplies like magnetic letters your little one can play with on a cookie sheet or school books and magazines around your home.

Build healthy habits

You’ve probably already started teaching your child about the importance of eating healthy and choosing fruits and veggies over junk food or soda pop. Promoting school readiness also includes school-appropriate nutrition. If your child’s school serves food, encourage your little one to eat what is served at school. By doing so, children’s proper nutritional needs will be met. Make an effort to keep sugary treats out of reach in order to prevent unnecessary temptation (and cavities!)

Map out your child’s day

Another important component of preparing your child for school is becoming familiar with the layout of the school. Take your child to the school and find out if you can walk through the building together. It will help ease any worries or anxiety if you’re able to point out the location of your child’s classroom, where kids go for recess, and other important spots in the building. You may also be able to take pictures of these places so that your child can study these maps at home too.

Review the daily routine

You can help your child develop an increased sense of security by discussing the routines at school. It’s beneficial for kids to become familiar with how things work in the classroom, and what will happen at specific times of the day (such as lunch

Talk about school

Many children are excited for school to start and looking forward to playing with their friends all day long! Take time to discuss what a typical school day will look like to help prevent  surprises. Engage your child in conversations about how school works, and encourage questions about school rules and classroom expectations.

Read books about school

Knowledge is power! Reading books to  young children about school will help them become familiar with what to expect before the first day arrives. Kids can get an idea of what a classroom looks like, how a teacher might behave on the first day, what kinds of activities and projects they might do each day. You can also read school-themed books to help your child learn some basic school-related terms and what some typical school situations might be.

Starting school is one of the most exciting events of your child’s life. These activities will help prepare your child for this transition, and make school a happy and fun experience!

At Young Scholars Academy, we connect with our families on a deeper level than most corporate child care centers are able to. We aim to understand the needs that are most important to your family, and the developmental goals you have for your little one each day. Contact us to learn more about our center today!

Learning the alphabet is one of the most essential steps for children when it comes to learning how to read. No matter what books you provide or which language you are teaching them, it always starts with the basic alphabet. Children must learn the letters before they can move on to more complicated reading and writing concepts. In this post, we will provide you with a variety of tips and alphabet exercises so you can help your child learn about the alphabet successfully.

Alphabet Exercise Tips

The attention span of most children is usually limited, and they tend to lose focus very quickly.  This can happen especially when they do not see any immediate results or benefits from learning something new. This is just one of many challenges that teachers and parents face when teaching children how to read.

How can we hold the attention of children when teaching them the ABCs? Here are some of our top tips you can implement when teaching ABCs:

1) Help them become engaged

One of the best ways to teach children their ABCs is by ensuring that they will be interested. You can do this by associating letters with something they like or enjoy, like animals, food, or cartoons. For example, if your child is a fan of the cartoon “Tom and Jerry,” you can start by teaching your little one how to write and say his or her own name. Next, you can teach your child the letter T, and how it is associated with the name Tom. Show your child a picture of Tom and Jerry, and ask which relates to the name “Tom.” You can continue this by teaching children other letters in the alphabet. Eventually, they will start linking letters when creating words.

2) Use high-quality learning materials

The internet is an excellent resource for finding a variety of learning resources for children. Many websites can provide you with free learning resources, such as tools for learning letters and learning through music, and games. You can also use a range of infant development DVDs that provide children with interactive visuals and sounds.

3) Use tools to help children recognize letters

Another great way to teach children their ABCs is by using tools that help them learn to recognize letters. For example, use refrigerator letter magnets that children can attach and remove as they become more familiar with letters.

4) Incorporate learning into playtime

The best way to teach children their ABCs is by combining learning with playtime. For example, you can teach kids how to create the alphabet by using building blocks. Then you can then help them build something that starts with a particular letter.

If you are teaching them the letter F’ you can build a fort together. If children are learning about the letter P’ you can show them how to make a paper plane.

5) Teach kids how to connect letters with sounds

Another important aspect of learning ABCs is teaching kids about the connections between each letter and the sound it makes. If children are learning about the letter S and you want them to connect that letter with his /s/ you might have them practice saying words that start with the letter ‘S,’ such as sun, star, snake, spider, and so on.

6) Teach Them How to Recognize Words

Once children have mastered their ABCs, you can also teach them how to recognize words. Do this by introducing simple, short words such as “cat” or “dog”.You can also ask them which words they think might be used to describe a cat or dog in a picture.

7) Make alphabet exercises fun and easy

It’s important to engage in activities that don’t result in your child becoming bored or uninterested. That’s why it’s beneficial to  incorporate learning with something fun, such as playing games, reading books, or watching TV together.

You can also use a variety of educational tools, like alphabet flashcards. There are plenty of great learning materials that will help your child learn how to recognize, spell, write, and identify the sounds each letter makes.

Effective alphabet  learning activities are a key aspect of our curriculum at Young Scholars Academy. For more information, contact us today!

I’ve been teaching preschool for many years. Let’s just round it to about twenty years. I love my job! I’ve seen many people go into and out of this field. Perceptions about what we do are shattered or evolved every day. It is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. It is also one of the hardest. Here is why. A teacher doesn’t just teach ABCs and 123’s. A teacher doesn’t just sit around and watch the children play. We are involved in every aspect of the children’s lives. Guiding them as they grow up. We help lay down the foundation on which they will grow and learn upon. We support the families of the children we teach. We teach them academics, how to socialize, how to love themselves, and how to problem-solve through life’s frustrations. As a teacher, you will wear many different hats!

To get started – Educating yourself is the first step and a continuous affair. Get your degree in Early Childhood or Elementary Education. These classes will give you a steady foundation and distinguish you as someone who is serious about your career choice as a teacher. Just keep in mind that you will be taking classes and training throughout your career. We teach but we never stop learning! One o the best ways to learn is to find an experienced teacher that you can lean on. Ask them questions and listen to their guidance. They will be great at encouraging you, a shoulder to lean on, and a sounding board.

An average day – Let’s start the day at seven o’clock clock in time. Now rewind to when most teachers arrive at work. It could be anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes early. This is when teachers prep for the day. Gather supplies, prepare for the day’s activities. Many times, you will be also conversing and answering questions to other teachers and parents that you see. Finally, you clock in. Time to start. During your day, you will work with your children on these academic foundations: math skills, science experiments, reading, and literacy skills. Don’t forget the fine motor capabilities of holding a pencil and using scissors. Then you need to address the large motor skills such as skipping and moving their body safely in relation to the other twenty children in the class. Intertwined in these daily activities you will be dealing with what I like to call “life”.

Here we go: plunging a toilet with a whole roll of toilet paper in it, milk spills from lunch (never just one), shoes that need tying (knotted from where they tried), a child screaming for a box of Kleenex with snot running down their face, children arguing of a toy car, tattling because “Johnny” is looking at them or “Linda” is breathing too loud, and so on. These are the normal events that teacher uses to teach self-help and self-management with their children. You teach them that less is better with things like toilet paper, how to wipe up milk without the whole roll of paper towels, and just spreading it all over the floor and wiping their own nose and washing their own hands after. The most important is teaching them how to talk to their friend about how they feel when they take their toy car, how to compromise while playing together with it, and most of all how to accept the different ways people act and communicate with each other. We teach them to speak with the proper tones, use kind touches and words, table manners, how to listen to others, and how to work together and be safe.

Working with the families of the children in our class is another important part of your day. How to include them in their children’s activities and how to include the many beliefs and parenting styles. You will field questions about their child’s development, where they lost their socks, why they won’t sleep or eat their green beans. Then there are the things you do that parents don’t see. Scheduling and taking a CPR class, researching, and developing the curriculum you want to do the next week, and buying those really cute pencils because you think car pencils will help spark an interest to write. Sounds busy and hard, and yes you will be tired. But…….

You get to see the smiles, hear the laughter, and receive so many hugs! You get to see and feel the pride they have when they finally sound out the word cat by themselves or write their name on their own. You get to feel accomplished when they move on to the next class and are successful. You know you have made a positive impact on their family when you help them solve everyday issues and help to bring just a moment of peace to their busy lives and ease a parent’s worries about the little things.

Teaching is the hardest yet most rewarding career you could ever choose.
Being a teacher is a calling.

Ms. Dotty
NAEYC Coordinator
Lead Pre-Kindergarten Teacher

Last month, Young Scholars restarted the Financial Peace Junior program by Dave Ramsey. This program is implemented into the Prekindergarten through Advanced Junior Kindergarten classrooms over the course of the academic school year. There are 4 different categories that are included in the program: working, spending, savings, and giving.

We work on each area separately for two weeks at a time and go over each section in detail. The program includes a series of storybooks covering each area with the main character named Junior. So, if your kiddos are coming home talking about a boy who works for money named Junior, this is what they are talking about! A great opportunity to ask them questions about the story and how their job at school is going.

After all categories have been covered, we then combine them so that the kids are practicing each area simultaneously. In the past month, we have covered the working and spending areas. The kids were introduced into jobs within the classroom and have been practicing being held accountable and responsible for their job each day. Each day they do their job they are paid $1, if they do not complete their job for the day, they do not get paid. Just like in the real world, if you don’t show up for work you can’t make the money.

At the end of the week, the spending part comes into action, and they get to visit their classroom store where they get to put their money towards different little toys and prizes. We have had kiddos save $20 before! It’s a lot of fun for the kids and teaching them such amazing life skills at the same time!

In the next few months, savings and giving will come into the mix. Be sure to ask your child about what giving/savings project they are saving for! As a class, we get to vote on each option. Jobs change every week, so this is a great conversation point to make on Mondays after new jobs have been given! It’s the highlight of circle time!

Be proud of your preschooler! They are working hard!

 

Ms. Whitney
Curriculum Coordinator
Lead Pre-Kindergarten Teacher

I know that the sense of control over situations often gets the best of us as parents. We want what is best for our children and always want to rush to their side to help them.

Consider taking a couple of steps back. And just see what your children are capable of. You will have to give cues and prompts along the way, but the result often is that your child can complete most tasks on their own. Here’s a list of things that your child (ages 2+) is fully capable of doing:

• getting dress (from picking out the clothes to putting them on, and buttoning and zipping)
• wiping up spills and messes that they made
• putting away their belongings
• making some of their daily choices
• taking responsibility for their actions
• toileting (whatever step they are on, let them try to do what they can)
  These simple tasks will not uproot your way of doing things; it’s honestly going to make your life easier. That’s right…easier!

You are guiding your child in the direction of success at a young age. It’s easier to start teaching how to do things and setting expectations earlier in life. Age appropriately putting more on your child a little at a time. By the time they are five, they will be overqualified for Kindergarten-Ha!

 

Ms. Brooke
Literacy Coordinator
Lead Pre-Kindergarten Teacher