My goodness, my personality is made for summer! The slow morning wake-ups. The structureless days where we can come and go on a whim. The daylight stretching well into the evening. I’m telling you, it’s perfect for me and my kids also seem to fall right into the freedom of summer without a second glance behind them.
I wish I could say the same for how they fall into a new school year. Why is it so easy to adapt to the start of a new summer, but not nearly as easy to get into the swing of a new school year and all of the schedules that come with it?? My kids are entering 7th and 5th grade, and you would think by now it would be second nature to us.
I don’t know that it will ever be second nature exactly (remember us and our carefree personalities??), but we have found some ways to make it easier and a bit less painful!
Before School Starts Prep!
1) Make sure your child has any material items they may need: bookbag, lunchbag, notebooks, pencils, clothes and shoes that fit! I tend to buy clothes and shoes a little on the larger size so they can grow into them. My kids have been going through sizes like nobody’s business and it gets expensive fast! I’m a bit of a frugal freak too, and always grab my stuff when it goes on clearance the year before. So come early to mid- September, I’ll be buying lots of notebooks, pencils and similar things for next year. I try not to go overboard and buy too much until we get to Open House and the teachers give us their specific lists.
2) The back to school routine is new and challenging for all of us, so I try to make sure I have lots of freezer meals prepped ahead of time to make it easier on every member of our family. I don’t just prep dinners, I also try to have items in the freezer for breakfasts and lunches. Just last week, I spent an afternoon making breakfast burritos while my son helped by chanting how much he loved me for doing this (oh yeah, he also helped by doing the dishes but I liked the chanting more!). I love that they get a hot meal before they head off to school and it keeps them full all morning since my kids seem to always get stuck with the last lunch slot. I also try to make large batches of muffins and cookies to freeze. I can just pull them out the night before as I need them and they’re ready to go by lunch the next day.
3) My kids think I’m a bit of a nut that I still do this, but I also take an index card and write their information on it to tuck into a discreet pocket somewhere in their bookbag. I include: name, phone number, homeroom teacher, bus number and my name and number.
4) I go to our school’s website and print off the calendar for the first month. We write on which days we have sports practice, music lessons, cycle days and anything else they might need to know to help them get into the groove of their new schedules. It goes right on the fridge and then I don’t have to answer 546 questions a day asking me what day they have blah, blah, blah on.
5) I am really lenient with bedtime during the summer. A week before school starts, we start paying more attention to the clock and making sure we get to bed earlier and also waking up earlier. It’s so easy to be lax with this in the summer, but it’s one of the things that will make or break that first week of school! I’m also guilty of letting them sleep in places other than their beds pretty often during the summer! They want to sleep on the basement couch with a friend? Sure! Sleep in the tent in the sunroom for 3 days in a row? Why not?! But that week before school starts, everybody heads back to their own beds and starts re-training their body what a good night’s sleep means. Since it’s still a little light here until after 9:00, we start pulling the black-out curtains shut, making sure we have a comfortable Nature’s Sleep pillow and a supportive Nature’s Sleep mattress or foam topper, so that we’re positive we’re getting a completely restful sleep!
Tips for Once School Starts
1) Prep the night before! Always, ALWAYS, always!! We lay our clothes out, check folders, pack lunches and set backpacks/shoes/coats by the front door before we ever go to bed the night before! I shudder to think how chaotic our mornings would be if we didn’t take care of these basics the night before!
2) When they get home from school, immediately empty their folders so it’s clear in everybody’s mind what needs to be done that night! I have been burned too many times when one of them says they don’t have homework and then 9:00 p.m. rolls around and suddenly they have 2 worksheets and a book report due the next day. As they get older, it is more on their shoulders to be responsible for this, but I still find it helps if we see what we’re dealing with as soon as they get home from school.
3) Designate a specific area for them to give you papers you need to read and for them to park their belongings. Nothing makes me feel more frantic than 12 different piles all across the kitchen counters and table while I’m tripping over their backpacks. I just can’t do it. So we have a specific place they know to put all papers for me and hooks in the laundry room where their bookbags must go.
4) Even though my kids are preteens now, their personalities require that we put limits on how much TV they can watch otherwise, they would just stare all day. Once school starts, we make it very clear how much time they have and then they are responsible for keeping track of it themselves.
5) The most important thing to ensure a successful school day is a good night’s sleep. Yes, it’s still just as important as it was while we were prepping for the school year to start! A kid who is having a rough night of sleep is not going to have an easy day of school. It just doesn’t happen. We can refer back to #5 in the first list here: dark rooms and comfortable mattresses and pillows could make all the difference in your child’s attention span and personality the next day at school!
There isn’t anything revolutionary or jaw-dropping in our routines! Just simple little steps that if we follow them daily help to create a more calm, peaceful intro to the school year!
Jen at Nature's Sleep
Saturday 30th of August 2014
Great back to school tips! I have to agree with you about a good night's sleep being the most important element!