Weekend Mum
Are you ready for the weekend? Our resident Weekend Mum is, armed with a life-saving Friday cocktail, tales from her two favourite days of the week and top tips on making the most out of your weekend.
Tips to get kids back into the school routine
The start of a new term isn’t usually one that’s met with much excitement (certainly not with two primary and one secondary school aged kids) but guess what – I’m excited!
Like many parents, although I’ve absolutely loved spending quality time with my children and planning some great activities despite the wet weather, the school holidays are certainly not without stress. Oh the stress. Yes, we’ve enjoyed it – but after so many weeks off, who else needs a break?
Whilst me and other half are quite excited about the kids going back and some sort of normality returning, the kids don’t seem to be as much. Within a few days it will be early nights, early starts, school runs and them having to sit still and the tricky task of remembering how to write, whereas the eldest has all the fun of GCSEs to look forward to!
Even if you’ve left it to the last minute to try and get kids back into some sort of routine – here’s what we’ll be doing this weekend to try and avoid any weekday nightmares:
Get them excited – Even if they’re not, use the run-up to try and find things that will make them more eager to return to school. This can be talking about meeting up with their friends or new subjects they’ll get to learn. You can even buy smaller ones a special ‘lucky’ pen to use, a treat, or plan a fun activity for when they get home.
Practice Run – Yes it sounds a little bit too organised, but if your child is starting a new school it can be handy to try out their new route before the big day. Obviously this isn’t applicable to everyone, but make sure you’ve accounted for morning traffic, school bus timetables or arranged times and meeting places if you car pool or do the school run with other parents.
Revise their bedtime – Now is the time to reinstate their night time routine, try and get them to bed and awake at a reasonable time so that it won’t be such a shock on the first day back. To get them more eager try and plan activities which require you all to get up, washed and dressed before 8am! Even the next few days of doing so will do all of you good!
Dig out their uniform – This is one more for the parents than the kids, but if you’re counting on keeping some of last term’s uniform then go through it all as soon as possible to check it still fits and is wearable. If not you still have time to grab basics this weekend.
Homework – Not a good subject but it’s important to ensure that if your child comes back with homework on the first day that they’re prepared. Make sure you set up a quiet homework space where they can work. If your child is older and their workload will increase make sure they have everything they need to complete this – some schools can set up laptop lending schemes for example rather than you buying a new PC.
Packed lunches – Ask your child what sort of lunches they would like and have a go at making a meal plan for them, it could be that you can make and then freeze some of their foods, ready to put in the lunchbox on the day.
Daily timetable – Once you have your child’s new timetable you can start planning exactly what you all need to get prepared. You can buy a cheap whiteboard to put in the kitchen and draw a weekly table with things like ‘take PE uniform’, ‘hot lunch’, ‘swimming’ on the relevant days. You can also give kids no excuse and write in homework deadlines too.
Are you excited for the new term? Do you have any tips or tricks for getting kids back into their routine?
Weekend Mum
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