Parents usually get anxious before one to two weeks of school. While we are still enjoying the summer, it’s already time to prepare for school. If your kiddo is starting their very first day of kindergarten, the anxiety level is usually higher. You are worried if you have forgotten to prepare something and what if you can get all things on time. It’s ok, we’ve all been there. We’ll go through some tips and items that you would need to prepare for the first day of school, whether it’s for the beginning of a kindergarten life or return to a new grade.
1. Check your email
Your school website or email would usually provide information for you to prepare the first day of school. The teachers provide you with a list of items that you need to buy for school. They usually list out the items provided by the school, and the items would be required from the students. Make sure to take a look at it before going into the stores because school actually provides quite a lot of items already. (Yes, I got anxious and bought too many items that are still sitting in the drawer.)
2. Prepare early, but not that early
Stores usually won’t have the school items out until the beginning of August, and don’t expect the school items to go on sale anytime soon. You can either start preparing very early, like possibly in May or June, or even a year ahead, or you probably won’t find any items on sale after September, which school has already started. Some items are usually listed out 3 to 4 weeks before school starts, such as backpack, notebooks, lunch boxes, etc, and here are some of the items you can start preparing early:
- New shoes or indoor shoes (their feet won’t grow crazy in a month and stores are crazily busy one week before school starts).
- Name labels - choose your favourite icons and leave some time to label all the things! Shop now
- Playdoh - Why? It sometimes goes on sale, so look out for it!
- Sidewalk chalk - the best time to get it is Summer.
3. Practice
Probably the teacher has already reminded you during the before school interview. Here are a few things that we highly recommend you to practice with your child during summer time.
- Bathroom routine (hand washing, wiping down)
- Wearing mask (some schools are still mandatory for masks)
- Open and close lunch boxes (you don’t want unfinished food spilled all over their backpack or lunch bag)
- Wearing shoes
- Wearing jacket
4. Get familiar
Drive by the school a few days before the school starts, walk or drive the route you’ll use on the first day of school, or walk to the bus stop if your child is going to take the school bus. Remember to save an extra 10 minutes in either way of getting to school because it’s going to be a very busy day and you’ll need to possibly stop longer at intersections or try to find a parking spot near the school. School bus will also require you to be there earlier for the first day of school. And, you gotta save some time to say goodbye, give hugs, and take photos!
5. New routine
We know summer is fun and most of the schedules are messed up. It’s recommended to take at least two weeks to train the little kiddo back to the normal/new routine. If your kiddo is still taking a nap, you may want to start cutting that as there is no nap time for school. Along with that, you should be able to get them to bed earlier and wake up earlier.
I packed the backpack three days before the school and realized that you can’t really fit everything in. Afterall, you actually don’t need to send everything to the school on the first day. Some of the items can take its time to slowly put into the backpack in the first week of school, such as a kleenex box, headphone, and whiteboard. The must-have items for the first day of school for me are, indoor shoes, extra set of clothing, and sidewalk chalk. Nicely labeling them as these items will be kept in the school for a bit. Just a side note that newer styles of lunch bags and backpacks won’t be out until August. Make it fun to have shopping trips with the kiddo this Summer and enjoy!
Photo by Caleb Oquendo & Katerina Holmes.
