To be ready for school your child needs to:
- put on and take off their coat and shoes, get dressed with little help
- use the toilet and wash their hands
- spend time away from you, learning they can be looked after by caring adults
- take part in imaginative play, such as role play
- draw, paint, and enjoy other activities such as colouring and sticking
- look at and share story books
- explore the world around them
- practice sharing and taking turns with toys
- begin to recognise what others are feeling, for example understanding if a friend is sad
- sing along with songs and nursery rhymes
- enjoy moving such as climbing, running, catching and doing simple activities
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Growing independence
Taking care of themselves
Encourage your child to become more independent in dressing and undressing. Show them how to handle different fastenings such as buttons, press studs and zips. Praise them for taking responsibility for finding and putting on their own coat and shoes and then hanging up and putting away after use.
It will support your child if they are able to eat independently once they start school, so things like being able to peel a banana or take the top off a yogurt are great skills to teach children. Being able to use cutlery with confidence, including a knife to safely cut their food, will be a great benefit at lunch times.
Spending time away from you, learning they can be looked after by caring adults, will support your child to learn to develop relationships with others and the confidence to talk to different adults. Encourage your child to express their needs and learn to ask for help when needed.
Play, creativity and curiosity
Support your child to develop their imaginative play skills by introducing simple story lines into their play. You could act out a familiar story book or make up stories about favourite TV characters. Young children love to recreate familiar experiences such as what they have done at nursery or something they did on a family outing. You can encourage your preschooler to dress up and take on the role of different characters, or show them how to pretend by adding language as you play along with them using small world people, animals and characters.
Providing access to lots of different materials such as paints, drawing materials, playdough and construction blocks will help your child gain wider experiences and make your opportunities to play much more varied.
Play time is about having fun together, doing what your child enjoys. The most important thing is to be available for them. Try to give your preschooler some time each day when you can play for a short a time without any other distractions.
Building relationships and communicating
Being with others
Providing opportunities for your preschooler to play with other children will help them to learn to enjoy being with other children and you can support them to learn how to take account of others and negotiate when problems arise. For example: How could you make it fair? What can you do if someone else is using the toy you would like?
Communication and language
Help your child learn lots of new words. Encourage children to use describing words for example, a juicy red apple, or a soft ripe kiwi fruit. Play 'I spy' by describing the item, for example, 'I see something that is tall, it's made of metal, it has a bulb at the top' and then talk about the sound it starts with.
Support your preschooler to parts of words and play with these. You could play a game of 'rhyme strings'. Choose something you can see, for example 'tree' and together choose as many words as you can imagine (real words or made up words) to rhyme with it. Can you make a string of 3 or 4 rhyming words?
You could clap out the syllables of words, choose longer words such as elephant, hippopotamus or make up phrase such as 'Beautiful Bethany' to make more syllables.
Reading stories is a great way to expose your preschooler to new words that they might not hear as part of daily conversations. When sharing books, be mindful of which words your child may be unfamiliar with and you can talk about the meaning of these and look for opportunities to revisit them at other times so that your child becomes confident to use them. For example, has your child experienced a forest, seen a castle or walked across a bridge? These are words contained in many children's stories.
Listening and engaging
Support your child to develop their conversation skills. Aim to chat with them, giving your undistracted attention, as many times as possible throughout the day. Give your child plenty of time to explain their thinking.
When going shopping or running errands, children can be supported to write a list of what is needed. This will develop their understanding that print carries meaning. You could also encourage them to notice road signs and other print in the environment or house numbers.
Share books and stories together. Move your finger along the words as you read and encourage children to talk about the pictures and make links to their own experiences.
Physical development
Encourage children to walk to nursery or school sometimes, as this can be a good form of exercise. As you walk, talk about the weather, seasons and things that you see on the way.
Provide opportunities for your preschooler to develop more skill and coordination in their physical movements such as:
- walking up and down steps (one foot at a time, using the wall for support)
- climbing, running, jumping and playing
- catching a large ball (most of the time)
- doing simple puzzles and craft activities, strengthening their grip with cutting and sticking
Healthy routines
Establish health habits such as always washing hands before eating and after using the toilet, having regular baths and cleaning their teeth. Talk about germs and hygiene. You can talk about the order things happen in to support language development, for example:
- washing hands - first get hands wet, next use the soap, and then wash off the soap, and finally dry your hands
- washing hair - first wet the hair, next rub in the shampoo, and then rinse out the shampoo, finally do it all again
- float or sink games - first find the bath toys, next catch all the ones that float, and then look for all the ones that sank, finally put the toys away
Snuggled up before bed is a good time of day for a 'catch up chat'. You like conversations that are in a comfortable place and not filled with questions. Give the same chance to your child. Comment on what they say rather than ask lots of questions, for example, 'that sounds fun', 'you had great fun painting that picture', 'wow, I loved that story, my favourite part was...'.
Further ideas
For more ideas talk to your health visitor, children's centre, nursery or school about Derbyshire ECaT: Every Child a Talker.