Three Key Steps for Preparing to Transition to School

It can be daunting for your child to finish preschool and transition to school. However, parents and teachers can help to prepare for the shift to big school and let them feel secure and confident at the same time.

Keep Calm
First, make sure that you keep a calm and measured demeanor when talking about starting school. Children pick up on parent anxiety and stress which influence how they feel. If you talk about school like it is an exciting, your child will feel more excited and positive as well.

Be wary of putting too much pressure on your child to learn academic skills like reading, writing, or mathematics before they start school. If they have the basic underpinning skills such as recognising letter sounds or number quantities, this is great! Everything else will be learnt at school. Prematurely pushing them to learn can make them feel stressed. Before they begin school, their focus should be playing and improving social and emotional development. At Falcon British Nursery, children are encouraged to focus on play and emotional development, as this is the best way to prepare them for what is to come at school.

Be Practical
It can help your child to take practical steps towards starting school. Take them to visit the school that they will go to so that they can see what it is like. Show them the route that they will take to school each day and explain where they will play and what they will do in the day. Your child will also need supplies for school such as a new backpack, lunchbox and a pencil case. If you buy these things together it can help your child to get excited about starting. They will then feel like they have more control and input into the process.  Family ties are important. Talk to your child about what school is like and show them photographs from when you were at school. It can also help to talk about memories that you have of being at school so that they understand you have been through it too.

Collaborate with Teachers
The teachers at Falcon British Nursery are experienced at transitioning children into school and have done it many times before. They know what skills your child can work on before your child begins school and will role play what to do at the beginning of big school. Talking to your child’s teachers about your fears or concerns, as well as making a joint plan to best support your child can help the transition to go smoothly.

Exercise for Young Children: How Active Should They Be?

Our children are often very active when they are young, with seemingly boundless energy. Children should have a certain amount of exercise each day, spent playing games and doing activities that teach them balance, coordination and general fitness.

What Are the Recommendations?

It’s commonly expected that children require the same amount of physical activity as adults, such as 30-60 minutes a few times a week. However, the NHS recommends your toddler or child under 5 should be engaged in as much as 3 hours of activity per day. This includes playing and moving around, running and jumping and more clearly active play such as climbing, chasing, swimming or paddling in water, riding bikes, or playing with a ball.

The CDC also recommends that children get around 3 hours of exercise each day, in particular including activities that support good bone health and bone growth, such as activities that involve jumping and hopping. Physical activity is a major issue for children in many countries and in the US studies have found that only 1 in 3 children are get enough physical activity each day.

Good Physical Activities in the Early Years

Activities for your preschool-aged child should include a wide range of movements, including things that stimulate balance and coordination, as well as aerobic fitness and strength. At Falcon British Nursery, physical activity is a priority and children are encouraged to move daily and play physical games to keep fit and healthy. For cruisers and early walkers, good games can include Simon Says, where children copy the actions of a teacher, or singing action songs such as Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

As your child reaches age two or three, they can begin to play in larger spaces and outdoor areas and should be encouraged to run around and improve balance, such as by playing games like football, catching and throwing, climbing trees, or playing on playground structures. Play spaces that include swings and bars can help children to improve their balance and develop their inner ear, by engaging in activities such as swinging or hanging upside-down.

Exercise is a large part of the Falcon British Nursery curriculum and you can have confidence that your children will meet their activity requirements each day while with the nursery staff. 

How to Help Your Nursery Aged Child Manage Emotions

During the first few years of a child’s life, they learn so much about the world around them. There are new experiences and journeys to be had every day. Adventures and experiences will mean facing emotions that can lead to outbursts that seem unexpected.

When a situation feels overwhelming to your child, it can escalate quickly into a full-blown tantrum. Helping your child understand what they are experiencing is the best way to help them begin to regulate their emotions. There are many hurdles faced by a child, whether sharing toys at  preschool or not being able to have ice-cream for breakfast in the morning, the way you handle the emotional outburst will leave them feeling validated or diminished.

Preschool Abu Dhabi - Falcon British Nursery

Recognising different emotions

As a parent, you learn to recognise your child’s signs and cues. You can recognise when they become angry, when they are happy and when they might be feeling down. When you pick up on these emotions, talk to your child about them. Even if it is casually, ask them how they are feeling. Are they feeling happy when they are smiling and having fun? Are they feeling sad when they are crying? Are they feeling envious when their friend has a toy they want?

Helping them give their emotions a name and helping them understand that these emotions are felt by everyone at some point will help them realise they are completely normal. They need to learn that feelings are perfectly okay to experience. 

Exploring how to express emotions

Understanding different emotions is the first step. Learning how to effectively express emotions in a socially appropriate way is another. There are certain outbursts that they need to learn are not appropriate – tantrums and violence for example can be an expression of frustration or irritation. All children act differently. Your child needs to learn an appropriate way of expressing their needs. Can they have their needs met by a physical hugs or singing? Can they use different words to get what they need instead of acting out?

A great way of helping them understand emotions is to get them to look outside themselves as well. If they have a sibling, ask how they think their sibling felt after a toy was taken from him/her and what emotion their sibling would be feeling. Not only will this help them identify and predict emotions in others, but it helps them understand that other people do experience the same emotions as well and they need to be careful about how they treat them.

Always react positively

It can be really tough to keep a calm and happy demeanour during a tantrum, but becoming angry yourself is not demonstrating how to deal with emotions. The best thing you can do for your child is to remain calm. You need to be able to approach the situation with a level head and they need see an example of how to act.

Talk them through their emotions from the start until when they have calmed down and help them identify what has caused them to feel that way. Getting down on their level and using short sentences and simple words will be the best way to get through to them the tantrum. As the leading preschool in Abu Dhabi, Falcon British Nursery provides the optimum learning experience focusing on your child’s brain development and emotions.