The "S"'s of School Success

As a teacher and director of a preschool in Olympia Washington, I am excited to share some of the “S”s for School Success.  The partnership between home and school is the foundation for “building” success in school.  Equipping kids with tools before entering school enables them to be confident, well-adjusted and ready to learn.

 These “S” skills would be the things that as a teacher, I wish my parents would reinforce with their children at home:

·        Self-Care:

Being able to properly care for oneself is an important skill to have before entering a classroom setting.  A child should be properly potty trained and confident in their bathrooms skills depending on the program.  Some programs require potty training, while others don’t.  To help encourage confidence and success, at home parents can practice a bathroom routine from start to finish.  Ask yourself the questions, can your child pull up their pants, button a snap, undo a belt? These are all fun activities that kids can “play” dress-up with parents and gain confidence.  Accidents in the classroom are inevitable and every teacher is prepared for this just in case.  To help your child prevent accidents, practice with your child how to tell your teacher when they need to “go potty”.  Also, turning on the faucet, washing hands with soap and water and drying ones hands independently is important to know by your child.  Children wash hands numerous times during a class day: first entering the class, after the restroom, before snack, after recess, or if their hands touch their noses, cough or sneeze.

One of the number one self-help skill a teacher would say would be teaching your child to put on their own coat.  Imagine the time it takes to put on a classroom’s pile of coats in the winter!  In our preschool, we teach the kids to do a coat “flip-a-roo”.  The kids lay their coats down on the floor, put their toes at the hood, reach down to put their arms in the holes and flip the coat over their heads and onto their shoulders.  The children are SO proud of themselves and love to play this “game” of getting their coats on.  Encouragement is the key to making self-care successful and fun.  

·       Sitting Still:

Many activities during the classroom day involve being able to sit still.  Teachers use circle time for lesson time, stories, calendar, special helper sharing, and music.  Teachers try to build their circle time with gross motor movement first before they expect their class to sit still in order to get the “wiggles” out.  Parents can help their children gain success in this skill by setting up time at home to sit still while reading, singing or snack time.  Parents can teach their children to sit “criss-cross applesauce”  (the term many teachers use to sit down with legs folded) to get ready for school.  Practice sitting still while coloring and use an egg timer or other fun timers.  Starting off with short time periods and building to longer time periods while keeping your child engaged and positive is the key.  Having a daily reading time is a great way to reinforce being still while learning.  It is suggested to read to your child 15 minutes each day.  Important tips for reading with your child are:  1.  Have your child pick a story/topic that they are interested in.  They will be more engaged in subjects that they like.  2.  Make sure that the book is age appropriate and the length fits in the time goal.  If you have a toddler, chose a book that has bright colored pictures and few sentences on each page.  3.  Sit down in a comfortable place with your child on your lap.  Snuggle time while reading is an added bonus.  This close proximity helps encourage your child to know how to sit still.  4.  Hold the book in front of you both while reading.  This will help to encourage focus.  5.  Reading the book to your child with voice changes and inflection makes the book come alive.  Children love to hear different characters and variety.  These tools will help in encouraging the skill of sitting still.

·       Separation:

Giving your child tools that they need to be separated from parents as they are dropped off at school is important.  Start practicing one hour at a time leaving your child in the care of grandma and grandpa, aunts or uncles, or close friends that are trusted and qualified.  Extend the time by one hour increments until you have reached the same time as the classtime.  If you are not able to handle it, rest assured that this is the most common issue that teachers handle each year.  I encourage parents to make practice “runs” to preschool, looking in the class, talk with your “soon to be teacher” and ask for a photo to put on your frig to start practicing her/his name.  A great book to read to your child is The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.  This is a wonderful story about a little raccoon ready to start school. He talks about his fears to his mother, fears that most children have before beginning school. His mother comes up with a wonderful solution to help her little raccoon remember that she loves him and is thinking about him, even when she isn't with him.  Another tool that I love using is asking the parent to draw a “heart” on their child’s hand so they can look at during class and think of their parent.  Finally, my general advice to parents when they are apprehensive about their child separating is, don’t “sneak” out of the classroom, calmly say goodbye and the teacher will help the child.  The longer the parent stays in the class and extends the “goodbye” the longer it takes for the child to “adjust” to the separation.  I tell parents to leave the classroom and walk to the end of the building.  If the child does not “calm down” and is in extreme distress, I will get the parents.  99% of the time, the child will quiet down and adjust to the classroom.

·       Straightening Up:

Most teachers have a “clean up” song….once the kids hear this song in their classroom, they know just what to do!  Parents are amazed when I tell them that the children in my classroom clean and organize the whole room.  At the beginning of the class year, we take a tour of the class and I explain the rules of the toys and the proper bins that each toy call its home.  After a few “clean-up” songs, the children are experts on where the toys go!  They are even bothered when they find toys out of place.  We encourage kids who are cleaning without being reminded with “clean-up” stickers.  Practicing “clean-up” time at home is a great way to get your child ready for school.  Reminding them to put a toy away before taking another toy out is an important rule as well. 

Another great way to encourage straightening up skills is practicing throwing trash away during craft time at home, putting caps on markers to prevent them from drying out and closing glue bottles.  These are all great skills to learn that will be reinforced at school.

·       Social Skills:

Most children’s #1 question in entering a new program is “Who will be there?”  Talk to your child about friends and role play making friends.  Providing your child with the opportunity to play with peers will help in this area.  Expose your child to new social areas..parks, play dates, library, community events and set small goals for your child to accomplish.  Goals such as smiling, saying “hi” and starting conversations about what the child likes to play and do are simple ways to learn.  It is also important to remember that children learn crucial skills through play with other children, but children also learn positive social skills through play with their parents. Little ones whose parents frequently play with them have more advanced social skills and get along better with peers.  Have fun and expose your child with new social situations and role play.

·       Seeking:

U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, spoke to the 2011 MOM CONGRESS in Washington D.C.  He relayed to us that the best investment that we can make in our child’s education foundation is in early education.  Giving our children more opportunities to share and seek in new experiences helps build the groundwork for learning.  A critical time in brain development occurs in the early years.  The more exploring and seeking that a child accomplishes strengthens the brain and the stimulation that results in greater development.  Research shows that between birth and age 3, the brain creates more synapses than it needs. The synapses that are used frequently become a permanent part of the brain. The synapses that are not used frequently are eliminated. Because of this, it is critical that experiences that children are exposed to plays an important role in wiring a young child's brain. The bottom line is, parents and teachers want children to succeed.  To do this, we need to provide many multiple social and learning opportunities so that the synapses associated with these experiences become permanent. Seeking new experiences through nature, social settings, culture, music, and learning experiences will help develop the learning child’s brain.

·       Snack Time:

Snack time is a highlight for kids during school.  Practicing good manners at the table prepares your child for happy and polite snack time.  Practicing opening cheese sticks, cracker bags, fruit wraps, yogurts and juice boxes is a fun table time activity at home.  Modeling good table manners is important…saying please and thank you, no thank you, can I have more and may I be excused.  In school, teachers walk through the snack time process and demonstrate snack time clean up expectations such as what garbage the napkins go in, where the plastic goes, how to put the remaining juice down the sink before the cup goes into the garbage and how to leave your spot clean.  It is refreshing to watch the children feel accomplished and successful during snack time.

It is such an exciting time for young children and their parents.  Teachers are getting ready and are anticipating the little pitter-pats of feet in their classrooms.

These "S"'s of School Success goals will help teachers and children have the BEST year filled with memories, laughter and most importantly.....SUCCESS!