Getting ready for school!
Hello all, today I thought I would share with you what I've been doing to prepare my little one for school.
In September, Riley will be officially starting school! It's gone way too quick and I can't believe my baby will already be attending nursery.
Riley is advanced for her age and she has recently been very interested in learning to read and write, so after doing some research, there are a few things I've done to help her that I thought I would share with you guys.
Just a little side note, I am no way qualified as a teacher or in early years education, these are just a few things I thought I would share with you that works for us.
Read, Write, Inc.
Read, Write, Inc is how Riley will be learning to write her letters when she attends school, plenty of printables are available online for you, as parents, to learn read, write, inc yourself. I'm very lucky that my family work in childcare, so I was told about this earlier, meaning Riley has had more of a chance to practice before school.
Here's a little parenting hack for you! Buy a packet of your child's favourite sweets or snacks, skittles and starburst work best for us. Print the read, write inc table and place the sweets over the letters, have your child pick a sweet or snack off the table and ask them to write the letter underneath, once they have wrote the letter, they can have the sweet/snack! Another little tip for this is to get a little drywipe whiteboard to practise the writing on, we got ours from Amazon for around £5.
From practising and practising, Riley is now able to write her name by herself.
2. Flash cards
I had a look at what words children will be learning to read when they attend nursery school, I couldn't find anything for nursery but I did find a printable with high frequency words that they will learn in the year above (reception), so I decided to use this instead. Riley is already beginning to recognise and read certain words just from me reading to her, so these still worked just as well.
Website with downloadable printable: http://www.familylearning.org.uk/reading_printables.html
After printing the words, I cut them up into flash cards and added a little bit of colour.
Every day we look through the cards to see which ones she can read without me.
3. Activity and wipe clean books
We are a big fan of wipe clean books from Amazon! We have so many I've lost count, but everyday Riley will choose which book she would like to do, and we will work on it for about an hour, here is our collection.
The bottom two books came from an Usborne set which I will post a link to.
4. Usborne reading books
We LOVE Usborne reading books! Our favourite sets are the Usborne Phonics Readers and the My First Reading Library.
The Phonics Readers set contains 16 gorgeous books which are beautifully illustrated, with tips and tricks for parents in each book to guide you on how to teach your children phonics.
The Usborne My First Reading Library contains 50 books all at different levels. The first 22 books follows the phonics methods taught in school, it encourages children to read with sections specifically for the child to read.
The next 12 books are short stories to encourage the child to read by themselves .
The next 16 books are designed to build the child's reading confidence with longer stories.
Hopefully these little tips and tricks can help you prepare your little one for their first school days, here are some links to some of the products I have mentioned.
Read, Write, Inc. printable - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/525654587742048631/
Amazon whiteboard - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07N262ZSQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
My preschool workbook - https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Preschool-Workbook-Activities-Prepare/dp/1641522763/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=my+preschool+workbook+101+games&qid=1596029353&sr=8-1
My First Learn to Write Workbook - https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-First-Learn-Write-Workbook/dp/1641526270/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y2W302DODOLH&dchild=1&keywords=my+first+learn+to+write+workbook&qid=1596029387&sprefix=my+first+learn+to%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-1
Collins First Sums - https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Activity-Collins-Learning-Preschool/dp/0008212945/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=collins+first+sums&qid=1596029413&sr=8-1
Collins Numbers 0-20 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Numbers-Activity-Collins-Learning-Preschool/dp/0008212953/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=collins+numbers+0-20&qid=1596029430&sr=8-1
Collins First Phonics - https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Phonics-Collins-Learning-Preschool/dp/0008151636/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=collins+first+phonics&qid=1596029472&sr=8-1
Usborne Get Ready for School wipe clean books and reading sets - we purchase our Usborne packs from our local independent Usborne Organizer Laura Rowlands, find her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/LauraRowlandsIndependentUsborneOrganiser/