Back to School Tips and Tricks
If you have a child in school, then you understand the chaos of getting lunches packed, homework in the book bag, teeth brushed, shoes tied, and children fed breakfast all before you have to leave to get your child to school on time.
I want to share a few tricks I have learned to help manage our mornings. I’m also going to share a few school items that I love!
Back to School Tricks
1. Your child is old enough to help! Even if they are in preschool they are old enough to help get their homework organized, lunch packed, snack picked out, clothes on, and possibly even make their own breakfast. You want your child to become a self-directed adult, so start giving them some responsibility and let them suffer the consequences if they don’t do their job. Ask them to pack their book bag the night before—you can remind them what needs to be in the book bag, but if they fail to put it in then let them explain it to the teacher.
2. Prepare most school things the night before, not the morning of. This helps mornings not feel so hectic, which helps everyone avoid mornings we regret. Let your child help get the book bag packed the night before, lay clothes out that they plan to wear tomorrow, pick out a snack and lunch items and place them in the refrigerator or on the counter, maybe even plan what you will have for breakfast.
3. Wake up on the offense, not on defense. This means waking up before your children get up. This is not an easy task, but it has been my saving grace to a stress-less morning. Waking up before your children get up allows you to get ready and get your things ready in a calm environment; whereas, if you wake up when it’s time to get your kids up then everyone is rushed and someone usually ends up mad or frustrated.
4. Create a morning routine chart for your child. Display a chart with your child’s morning responsibilities for them to reference throughout the morning. This helps them to take the initiative to complete their steps on their own. This helps you to focus on younger siblings or getting breakfast ready. You can include things like brush teeth, wash face, brush hair, get dressed, pick out a snack, pack lunchbox, get shoes on.
5. Give your child a big hug when they wake up. This helps to start everyone’s morning on the right foot!
6. Make lunches and/or breakfast a week at a time. I understand this isn’t doable all of the time, but if you can, then I recommend making a bunch of breakfast items to freeze that you can pull out throughout the week. This helps save time in the morning, and usually leads to healthier breakfast options. You can make and freeze items like muffins, breakfast burritos, pancakes, sausage patties, biscuits, or breakfast casserole.
You can also make lunches for the whole week. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches freeze and defrost well (just make sure you put peanut butter on both slices of bread). You can cut up and portion out fruits and veggies for the week. Doing this makes it easier for your child to help pack their own lunch too.
School Items I Love
1. Bento Lunch Box Containers-These fit perfectly in rectangle lunch boxes, and have the perfect portion sizes for a kid’s lunch.
2. CamelBak Kids Water Bottles-These water bottles are great because the spout flips down, which means no leaks and no germs. They are also easy to clean! They don’t keep water cold, but my kids don’t mind.
3. Wildkin Lunch Boxes-I like these because the Bento Lunch Box Containers fit nicely in them. They are insulated. They also include a mesh pocket on the inside to store an ice pack, napkin, silverware, or a snack.
4. Travel Size Hand Sanitizer-Always beneficial to keep around especially during flu season.
5. Primary Composition Journal- These are usually for kindergarten-2nd grade.
6. Composition Notebooks-The color coded ones help kids be able to tell different subjects apart or differentiate from their classmates’ journal.
7. #2 Pencils-I like the pre-sharpened ones because it’s so much easier!
8. Colored Pencils-These are awesome because you don’t have to worry about getting a pencil sharpener.
9. Crayons
10. Markers-This is a deal to get markers, crayons, and colored pencils together!
11. Scissors
12. Glue-I prefer glue sticks.
13. 1” Binders
14. 3 Pronged Folders with Pockets
16. Erasers
17. Pencil Box-This one is a tiny bit bigger than a normal pencil box, but I love that it won’t pop open if falls or turns over.
I hope you have a great school year with stress-free mornings and lots of learning! If you have toddlers and preschoolers at home and need some great “school” activities for them check out my books to help you get started.
