10 Essential Tips to Ensure Your Child is Ready for Preschool

As the academic year starts, both parents and children prepare for the thrilling journey of preschool. This stage represents a major milestone as it's often the initial structured group environment for kids beyond casual playdates. Ensuring your child is prepared for preschool is vital for a seamless transition and positive experience. Explore essential tips and insights to set your child up for preschool success, concentrating on readiness and relevant strategies. Learn how to assess your child's readiness for preschool and confidently navigate this exciting new phase.

Here are a few tips that really helped me to get my children prepared for preschool.

1. Tour the school before the actual first day of school. I have found that just showing my kids around before they actually have to go to school, helped tremendously. They already knew what room they were going to be in and knew their way around the school.

2. Two weeks before school starts, get into a bedtime routine. I didn't do this the first year and my kids were suffering a little that first week of school.

3. Wait until after the first week of school to buy your school supplies. I have found that many school supply lists are very general. In fact for my two older children, each of their teachers sent home new lists of what they needed. These lists were sent home on the first day and were very different from the list sent out by the school.

4. Put up a family calendar. I used a desk calendar and put it on our wall. I put all of the activities that we have for school up on that calendar. This helped us count down to the first day of school and also gets my daughter excited about activities that are happening throughout the year.

5. Get some of the kids together before school. One the genius mother's (not me, hahaha) planned a playdate last month and invited all of the kids who would be in pre-school together. The kids got to play for a few hours and the mother's really got to know each other as well. My daughter loves the fact that she went to school already knowing the names of many of her classmates.

6. When it comes to clothes, we get serious. About mid-Summer every year we have a fashion show where the kids try on a lot of their old clothes to see what still fits. Then we do the same thing once we go school clothes shopping. The new clothes fashion show helps the kids put things together and coordinate outfits for the upcoming year.

7. Write a school lunch menu plan. I let my daughter decide what she wants (within reason) in her school lunch and then we plan a menu for the week. This also generates a grocery shopping list.

8. Let your child help pack his/her lunch as well. I find that my children tend to eat about 90% of their lunches when they pack them versus when I pack their lunches.

9. Put in a note in the lunch. I have done this for years and I really love putting little notes to each child every single day in their lunches. Since my daughter doesn't read much yet, I have copied pictures for her and write things out like I love you!

10. READ. READ. READ. You can never read enough to your child. No matter what anyone tells you. We read to our kids every chance we get. We even act out the books. We make it fu and we make it memorable. We do what we can to instill a love of reading in our children.

I’m curious to know:

What advice do you have for moms prepping for preschool?