Inside: Learn 12 simple tips to ease the transition to a new school and easily adjust to a new environment.
August is back to school month in many parts of the world, including where we live. This can be a challenging time of year for many parents and children, especially when a new school is part of the equation.
A couple of months after my son started Kindergarten I reflected on how it went for us. I thought about what worked, what didn’t and I jotted down a few of those things that really helped make the transition to a new school go as smooth as possible.
I am so glad I took those notes because we moved this year which means he’s going to another new school.
What I realized was that many of the same tips I implemented last year to help my son adjust to kindergarten will apply this year for us as well. Yay!
This post walks through some of the things we did, both from a schedule perspective as well as a mindset perspective, to help prepare both my kiddo and my husband and me for this new phase in our lives.
I hope that these tips prove to be useful for you when you and your kids transition to kindergarten (or a new school environment) as well!
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How to Simplify Your Schedule for a Smooth Transition to a New school
With my son going back to school this meant a new routine and a new schedule for our family. We quickly had to learn how to set ourselves up for success to eliminate the stress of the last-minute crunch time in the mornings before school.
Here are a few things that we are doing to help keep things running smoothly on those busy school mornings!
Develop a Simple Meal Plan Routine
During the school year, there are usually other activities on the calendar like sports and extracurriculars. By taking a few minutes each week to think about what your family will eat for dinner, you really set yourself up for success. A simple meal plan routine will help you plan for a crockpot meal when you know you have practice or a bigger meal that will be good for lunches the next day as well.
A weekly mean plan will also enable you to plan for your kid’s favorite meals which can help your child settle into a new school year knowing they will have a familiar favorite dish waiting for them at home.
>> Related Post: Create a Weekly Meal Plan
You can also get kids involved in the cooking to take some of the burden off of you! This also teaches them responsibility and fosters a love of eating healthy food.
Check out this hands
Stick To Simple Breakfasts
We stick to things like toast with peanut butter, oatmeal, and the occasional pancakes or egg in the middle.
You can even include breakfast in your meal plan so you know ahead of time what you plan to make. As your kids get older they can start helping out by making their own breakfast too, especially if they already know the options to choose from!
Related Post: My Favorite Tools for Meal Planning (+ FREE Trello Meal Planning Board)
Develop an Evening Routine
We all know the saying, a successful morning starts the night before! This is so true! I try to get as much done the night before so that we can have a more relaxed morning.
Here are a few things we try to get done every night:
- Make lunches and get a morning snack ready
- Make sure water bottles are clean or in the dishwasher
- Set out clothes and shoes for the next day
- Set backpack by the door
We also tried to start going to bed earlier about a week before school started. That way the first day of school wouldn’t be a huge deal to get up and out the door on time. My son can’t be the only one who stays up later and sleeps in later in the summer!
>> For help developing an evening routine, I love this wonderful course!
>> Related post: Evening Routine Challenge
Develop a Morning Routine Too!
A solid morning routine will help keep the tantrums and grumpiness to a minimum. When kids know what to expect, it’s so much easier for them to just do the next thing without complaining.
One thing I want to do this year now that my son can read is to print out a morning and evening routine chart so I don’t have to be the one harping on him to get dressed, brush his teeth, eat breakfast, etc. A visual chart will help him learn to hold himself accountable!
>> For help developing a solid morning routine, this is the course I recommend.
>> You can read my experience with the morning routine course here! There is also a free worksheet to help walk you through the course…go check it out!
Create a Capsule Wardrobe for Your Kids
Capsule wardrobes are not just for adults! Kids can totally benefit from a capsule wardrobe as well!
For those that do not know, a capsule wardrobe is a small collection of clothes that all mix and match with each other. One of the main benefits is that fewer clothes
My son has a uniform, so we have a built in capsule wardrobe!
Like I mentioned above during the evening routine section, we also set out the clothes the night before so my son just wakes up and knows what to wear. You can even go above and beyond and set them out for the whole week!
>> Learn how to create a capsule wardrobe for your kids here. Don’t forget to download the free printable planner while you’re there!
Add Everything to the Calendar
I mean everything! As soon as we get the school schedule, we put everything on the calendar so that we minimize the chance of missing something important.
It doesn’t matter if you use a paper planner or digital planner, but try to stick to one and use it! My husband and I share calendars on the built
Have a Plan to Tackle the Incoming School Papers
During my son’t kindergarten year I learned the hard way the sheer volume of papers that would be coming home. I started to keep everything and quickly got super overwhelmed!
I learned that I needed a plan to tackle these incoming papers, and fast!
Here is a general outline of what I do to tame the incoming papers:
- As papers come home each week I look through the papers immediately.
- I will often do this with my son and praise him for his awesome work and let him talk about anything that he was especially proud of.
- We then decide what his favorites are from that stack and put them in a folder to organize into a binder later.
- If there are any art projects I will sometimes hang them on the fridge or frame them for a while, and then put them in the folder if my son wants to keep them.
- Another option for art is to take a picture of your child holding the piece to save the memory, but not the actual art.
- At the end of the year, my son and I went through the folder of “keepers” and narrowed the pile down even more into the truly special items. There are several options to storing your kid’s papers for the long term, but I chose to keep the papers in a 3-ring binder since my son loves to look through his work.
- I imagine as he grows older we will be able to declutter more and more from the previous years so when he graduates from high school he won’t have tons and tons of papers.
This is a great article with different options for storing kids school papers and I plan to write a How-To post explaining how we created our binder system. There is not a right or wrong system, but find something that works for you and your kids!
How to Smooth the transition to a new school from a Mindset Perspective
My son has been going to a daycare center since he was 12 weeks old and we call it school. so he’s used to being in a structured setting all day. He’s used to being around kids, eating their food, listening to the teacher, etc. But going to kindergarten is still a big transition….no nap time, much bigger school, older kids, new building/teachers/friends.
With that said My son has always been someone who needs a lot of time to adjust to new situations, people and places. At the playground he was the one that stood by me for a while to take it all in before he’d go play. My daughter is the complete opposite in that regard!
I knew this change was going to be big for him so I tried to think of a few ways to make it special and to help him get more comfortable in his new school setting as quickly as possible.
Here are a few of the things that seemed to help my little guy with adjusting to a new school setting!
Plan to Visit the School Ahead of Time
We visited the new school ahead of time before anyone else was there. This gave us an opportunity to play on the playground, and take a look at the classroom, gym, and library.
You will probably have to setup a meeting with someone at the school in order to look around, so keep that in mind! If touring the school is not an option for you, then you can still take the playground for a test drive!
Read books about going to school
Reading is a great way to talk about big milestones in a child’s life without it being so personal. It also provides parents with a way to explain big situations in a easier to understand way.
Here are some of our favorite books about transitioning to a new school:
Talk about the new school by name and talk about it often
We happen to live very close to our new school so we would drive by it almost daily. This was a great opportunity to say “Look! There is your new school! This is going to be our new route in the morning!” After a while my son started pointing the school out on his own. He was getting excited!
I also made it a point to ask my son if he had any questions about the new school or the new teacher or if anything concerned him. He usually said no, but this gave him the opportunity to bring anything up that was on his mind.
Attend the open house or orientation night
This is a great way to meet some of the new classmates and meet the new teacher as well. It also offers a practice run for the child to know where his classroom is and how to get there on his own in the morning.
Find out the teacher’s name and start talking about him or her
As soon as I knew the name of my son’s teacher I started to use her name. This helped my son become familiar with her name and have it memorized before school started.
Even better yet – set up a special meet and greet ahead of time if the time (and school) allows. We did this with my son this year and the teacher was super duper sweet! The teacher showed both my son and me around the school, she showed us where his desk would be and showed us all around the classroom. By the end of the visit my son was chatting up his new teacher and I knew the transition to this new school was going to go better than I expected!
Bonus Tip: Keep it light and have fun!
I think this is the most important tip in this whole post. Your kids are looking to you to see how you are responding to a situation. If you are worried or stressed out, chances are, they will be too. If you are excited and seem relaxed, they are much more likely to feel the same way!
In summary, how to ease the transition to a new school:
Kids are super resilient and can handle situations like going to a new school. This post outlines some of the methods our family used to help make the transition to a new school go as smoothly as possible.
We will still have days where mornings are tough and nobody wants to go to school. That’s life! The key is trying to figure out how to have good days on majority of those days.
The two main areas to think about are how to set your child and yourself up for success from a schedule persecutive as well as a mindset perspective.
By adopting some of these tactics in your own home, I know you and your child will do amazing at his or her new school this year!
How Did You Prepare Your Family For The Transition to a New school?
Let us know in the comments below how you ease the transition to a new school so we can cheer you on!
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