What can we do to prepare our children for Key Stage Two?
Back to School! It seems like it’s back to school in the shops before schools even break up now but with less than three weeks to go, it really is back to school soon. There’s a lot of really useful information, help and support for new school starters but maybe not as much talking about how we support our children who have already started school but are moving into a new year group.
So in this blog, I’ve compiled a few of my top tips of things that you might want to start doing from now to prepare your child/ren for returning to school. Going back to school as a teacher was hard enough after the summer holidays, so for children of any age, it can be difficult too.
Maths:
When children go back to school, the first topic they start with is ‘Number and Place Value’. This is basically helping children to have a good understanding of what numbers are and the value of all the digits in a number. Within this topic they will learn to:
Show numbers in different ways, e.g. the number 482 is made up of 4 hundreds, 8 tens and 2 ones.
Place numbers correctly on a number line.
Add 10, 100 and 1000 to numbers,
Compare numbers using the words greater than, less than and equal to.
Order and round numbers.
Depending on which year group your children are going into will determine the types of numbers they will be working with.
What can I do to help get my child ready?
Look out for numbers in the world around them, e.g. house numbers, car registration plates, etc. and play games:
Who can be the first to find a bigger/smaller number?
Who can find a number that has a 2 in the hundreds column?
I’ve also got loads of Number and Place Value games on my website, all broken down into year groups and objectives (things that children are taught). Click the year group below to find games suited to the age of your child:
I also have a good game called ‘Target Number’ which involves children choosing a number and then answering as many questions on the cards as they can in the time set.
Writing:
In my experience, after the summer holidays, writing again at school can be tricky for many reasons but namely because they haven’t physically written as much so it can really hurt their hands. I use the phrase ‘writing stamina’ and after the summer this has usually significantly reduced and children can find it hard to write even a few sentences or a paragraph.
So, how can we help? My advice would be not to sit children down now and make them write for a set period of time but instead to have a go at some of the following:
Write about their summer! My mum always encouraged me to write a diary when we went away on holiday and I loved doing it because I loved writing but for some children this may be daunting or simply boring. So instead of a weekly diary, why not:
choose some special days that you had, find photographs and print them out and write short captions to go with them.
Add speech/thought bubbles to photos/pictures and write a sentence or two to show what you were thinking or saying at that moment.
This would be a great memory of your summer and the captions could be funny, thought provoking or a great reminder of that event.
Silly Sentences – This game is all about building silly sentences that have nouns, adjectives and adverbs in them. It can be played over and over, creating different sentences as they go. Click here to read how to play the game in more detail.
Don’t Say The Word – Play games that encourage children to think about how they would use words to describe something. ‘Don’t Say the Word’ is a good game to help with this. There’s also a free download here on the website if you want to have a go at the game.
Reading:
For me, it doesn’t matter how many books children have read or if they’ve read huge chapter books but instead that they have read something, and that could be a magazine, instruction manual for an Xbox game or a picture book.
However, if the whole of the summer holidays have passed and your child hasn’t read a thing, that’s ok too but you may want to try some of these things to help encourage your child to do some reading, ready for returning to school:
Go to the library/book shop and let your child choose a book that they are interested in. It doesn’t have to be one from their age group section, let them choose something that interests them (obviously not something way above their reading ability though).
Play some quiz games and let your child be the quiz master so that they have to read the questions to the other players.
Do some baking or cooking but ask your child to read the recipe out loud and follow the steps together.
Set up a treasure hunt with written clues to find something and your child has to read the clues in order to find the reassure.
Build a den and read together; that might be the same book or spend some time modelling reading. You read your book and your child reads theirs.
I also have some reading games that you might want to try on my website. Click here to have a look.
So, in my opinion, now is not the time to be sitting children down to fill out workbooks, write stories (unless they enjoy it), and read five chapter books. It is however, time to play games, encourage a bit of reading and writing and starting to build some stamina around concentrating and focussing for a longer period of time.
Above all, enjoy the rest of the summer holidays and spend most of your time making memories, whether that be watching films indoors or outside having fun. Enjoy it!
