Looking for Not-the-Typical Advice for Kindergarten Parents

Buy clips for their winter gloves so you don't loose them or sew a string on the ones you have and run it the length of INSIDE the sleeves/arms of the jacket.

Buy labels with your LAST NAME on them (irononcamplabels.com). Then you can simply iron them into EVERYTHING (and use them for all your kids). Use a permanent marker for everything else.

Don't buy a "cute" backpack. They fall apart and don't hold enough. Buy a good one and they can use it multiple years.

See if you can have playdates over the summer with other incoming kindergarteners - esp if you find out who will be in your child's class. Then everything won't be NEW.

Make sure your child can dress herself, pull up her pants (no overalls or tricky buttons on pants). We used lots of leggings and sweatpants for K. Keep shoes simple and durable - no flip flops, sandals that come off, etc. Use velcro gym shoes if needbe - she can wear the cute stuff when she gets home.

JOIN GIRL SCOUTS! Great way to have "instant friends" and fun age appropriate things to do with schoolmates outside of school.

Make friends with the other moms. We always help each other carpooling, taking the kids off your hands when you have a drs appt, etc.

Use the cut apart ice packs. We got ours at Target. They are basically reusable individual packs that are all sealed together but can be cut apart to different sizes. It's a great way to keep their juice box cold.

One thing I didn't learn until later but has REALLY helped:

Change their clothes immediately when they get home - esp during cold/flu season. We have "lounge wear" the kids changed into - sweatsuits or comfy yoga pants and top. My kids come home, empty their bags, wash hands, and change clothes. Dirty clothes go directly into the laundry.

I really feel this has been invaluable in cutting down on germs IN the house and not getting EVERYONE sick.

The drs and nurses during a hospital stay told us that one. They said THEY change BEFORE they go home for just that reason. Keep the germs out of the house and everyone stays healthier.

Believe me, Kindergarten is a big sickness year. It's a combo of being exposed to all those elementary school kids and bad hygiene in most little kids (not covering coughs, picking noses, not washing hands enough, etc). Don't be surprised with all the colds your child gets. It's just part of life.

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attend all meetings offered by the teacher & the school....that's the only way you'll stay in the loop. This is very important thru most of the school years, & becomes easier with subsequent children.

backpacks: buy a Nike or other sturdy bag. Have your child's last name added to it (we have a local custom embroidery shop that does this for <$5!). You'll be able to pull 2-3 years out of these backpacks....whereas the gimmicky ones fall apart before Christmas! & if you buy off-season, you can get fantastic deals.

School lunches are not always evil.....my son loves them. What a weirdo!

I prefer having my child buy milk than to drink juice with lunch.

If your school utilizes computer contact w/ parents.....sign up for it! It's a lifesaver when it comes to answering basic questions. Our school evens sends text msges with announcements! (all part of living in a small town)

Dress for comfort & safety....never for fashion. Those flipflops are banned by a lot of schools! Ponytails really help to prevent injury on the playground, too. Shorts under dresses to prevent undie exposure!

There will be an evil Mom in every class room. There may be more than 1. !! Stay far, far away from them.....

If you participate in parties, learn to delegate....& to be happy to do so. Almost everybody wants to help & the kids are very proud when their parents pitch in!

Never, ever buy the teacher a "teacher-oriented" gift.....no matter how cute you think it is! & please remember to exercise frugality & practicality when it comes to gifts. Otherwise, it becomes overwhelming.

& remember: KG is part of a journey.....it can be a Joy! I did not shed a single tear with either son.....it was a day to rejoice!

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No difficult pants. Stick with pull ons/elastic for now. Learned this lesson after getting calls during work to bring our son new pants after an accident. The school may not always have a backup pair of pants & underwear in your child's size. If your child still has accidents sometimes, stick an extra pair of underwear and thin pants that can roll up in the bottom of his/her backpack.

Get your wallet out and leave it on the counter. There will be never-ending fundraisers, so your wallet will constantly be open.

Also expect frequent, last-minute requests for foods for class parties. This will always happen when you're extremely busy and the last thing you have is time to go to the store. Oh, and tell your child if they're given the choice what mommy and daddy have to bring for a party, choose plates or napkins (they do often ask the kids). Finding peanut-free foods is a whole lot harder than you'd ever imagine (even foods you'd think no way have peanuts may have been produced in a room with peanuts and they're out). You don't want to get stuck with the food items.

The teachers do care whether you volunteer in class. They separate the kids into various categories when setting 1st grade classes and whether or not the parents volunteer is one category. Do your best to do something to help out.

Don't buy school supplies until you get the official list. Teachers will be very specific about what they want you to bring. Same goes for type of backpack.

Those are all that come to mind right now. Have fun! Our youngest also starts kindergarten this fall.

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- LABEL everything! Seriously... you wouldn't believe how many socks were in the lost-and-found at my last school.
- Go to every parent teacher meeting with questions prepared and your cell phone OFF & get a sitter for younger siblings so you can really hear what is being discussed
- Start a folder or notebook for your child so that you can keep track of his/her progress over the course of several years. Tab each grade level and keep report cards, letters from teachers, comment sheets, state testing, etc. Not that your child will have any "bumps", but it helps to have it all in one place!

4 moms found this helpful

Yeah...the accessibility of the lunch items is a big one. Mine is now in 2nd grade and I finally feel confident that he can open his own bottle of water!

If your child has allergies, sinus issues, etc., send in a few boxes of tissue throughout the year.

Buy about 3 gazillion pencils because they might take 2 to school everyday but they NEVER return home with them! Oh--and invest in an electric pencil sharpener.

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Do not allow your child to bring toys to school, even small ones. It is a HUGE distraction, teachers hate it, and more often than not things get lost/stolen/ruined/fought over. Teach your child that school is not the time or place for toys from home. If she/he just HAS to show someone something, plan a playdate for that purpose.

Do not buy expensive hats/mittens/scarves and send them to school. At the beginning of the season, buy several cheaper winter accessories. They will get lost, often mutliple times.

Most teachers will not tie shoes, zip coats, etc. Make sure your child has the clothing and footwear he/she can handle independently. Same thing for lunch items, like others have mentioned.

If you volunteer in the classroom, sometimes your own kindergarten child will be much more clingy and needy when you are present, and go back to being a model student when you are not there.

Don't bring birthday party invites to school unless you're inviting the whole class, and teach your child they will not get invited to every party, and that's OK.

Tell your child that you don't have to be good friends with everyone, but you DO have to be kind and respectful to everyone. It's wrong to exclude anyone who wants to play, keep your circle of friends wide.

It is pretty standard now that kids have homework, even in kindgergarten. Ridiculously unheard of when I was in kindergarten, and it was for me hard to embrace when my first child started school. But keep a positive, supportive attitude about schoolwork expectations, and establish a good homework routine now. It will make life SO much easier in subsequent years.

3 moms found this helpful

Send old yucky clothes as "spares" and be ready for the "wrong" items to come home in your son's bag - you may get someone else's jeans. We had a post from a woman on here throwing a FIT because the teacher sent her kid's clothes home with another kid on accident. Don't send expensive clothes to school. Also, mark their names in anything you really want back, and hope for the best!

Have a back up plan for cold lunches - my little ones have forgotten their lunch box on a few occassions. Our school is good about making sure they get a hot lunch and then charge us later - make sure you have similar arrangements

Be sure to find out if they are a peanut free (or anything else) classroom - many kids have allergies and if they do, you won't be able to send PB&J or anything that is not allowed in the classroom.

Have backup clothes in their closet the next size (or two) up, because you will wake up one morning and the jeans that fit them yesterday will not fit today.

Be sure to send all eating utensils in lunch box.

Don't send lunch items that need to be heated or reheated - most teachers won't do it

Put at least two sets of extra hat and gloves in their book bag in the winter time. Mine always seemed to lose theirs, and often.

Ask the teacher on a somewhat regular basis if the classroom needs anything - ie cleaners, kleenex, snacks, etc. They will appreciate it!

Arrange to go watch your child for a few hours, or even a day. You will love it!

I will try to think of more to add - hope these helped!

2 moms found this helpful

if you send a juice bottle--you know those little plastic ones...go ahead and open it to break the seal because if you have older teachers and helpers they have hard times doing sometimes.

I use ziplocks for all of the food. Even for lunchables because I do imagine it flying across the table. In the spring time the kids will be more experienced to open stuff like that on their own.

I had one tell my daughter to not bring her Thermos anymore because sometimes it was to hard to open. The kid likes soup. I couldn't but help but think ---How RUDE! lol

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get involved. be a class mom, go to parties/trips, join the pta, be visible in the school, as much as you can, anyway. kids are often very different in school than they are at home, anything you can do to get in there and see how they are in class is great. just dont overextend yourself or you will resent it, but be involved to the highest extent that you are comfortable. your child is an extension of you. if you are a pain, it will reflect on your child. but if you are supportive and helpful of your child and your childs teacher/school, that will reflect as well. volunteer here and there. not to mention that you will feel like you can ask for a favor here and there as the years go by. be on friendly terms with the teacher, dont take up all her time, but talk to her regularly and casually about how your child is doing, not just at pt conferences. get to know the other parents, but dont get sucked into that vortex of gossip etc, and keep the haters at a friendly distance.....
lots of cheap extra mittens/hats etc, they are practically disposable. and if you are ok with it, teaching your child that wearing mismatched mittens, socks, whatever, is fun/cool is a nice time saving trick when the pairs start un-pairing.... getting a coat that your child can completely manage themselves is key also. watch that stupid velcro along the zipper that makes it impossible to zip up.
get into good homework habits right away, my advice is that if you dont want to be doing their homework forever, or battling about it, start right off the bat with them doing their homework themselves (as it should be), with your help as needed....
and, as i am learning right now :(, gradually and gently teach them how to fight their own battles.

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Gosh, I don't think you can begin to prepare for the "Oh, no!" stuff. That's why it's "Oh, no!" LOL.

I say the big thing that is important is to stress personal safety with your child. She's at an age where she will better understand stranger danger, and emergency situations. Plus, this may be the first time she is away from you for a significant amount of time, in an environment or setting that is more wide open and crowded than a day care or preschool.

Chances are great that she will be in new environments often, and coming into contact with alot of different people and have more opportunities to find herself in strange places (like a field trip off away from school for example or out on a field or wide open playground).

I think it important that she knows what to do when the unexpected presents itself. Be sure she knows her full name, address, phone numbers, and who to talk to in an emergency. She should know phone numbers for relatives too in case of an emergency...and a code word so that in the rare case that one of them has to pull her out of school for a family emergency, she'll know it's okay to leave with them.

If she has to ride the bus, there is always the chance she'll get on the wrong one, or get off at the wrong stop. This happens more than you know in the Kindergarten years. While the bus driver will know what to do, you can't totally rely on this, and your child should be drilled on what to do.

There is also the growing bullying problem. Some talk about what to do, and how to get help is probably a good idea as well.

I strongly recommend getting her a child friendly personal safety video and pop it in from time to time to discuss emergency protocol and stranger safety. She'll be ready by next fall if you do this in bits here and there starting now.

Here are some that I think are good:

http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Safety-Angela-Shelton/dp/B...

http://www.amazon.com/Too-Smart-Strangers-Winnie-Pooh/dp/...

http://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Family-Version-Video-Matc...

http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Smart-Personal-Safety-System/...

http://www.amazon.com/Can-Safe-Interactive-Safety-Kids/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Tears-Highway-Bullying-School-Bus/d...

1 mom found this helpful

Ok those made me laugh. Too cute! My child started kindergarten this year and I am still learning some things.
Always put a sweater in the backpack. You just never know if the classroom is cold or here in Texas it can drop 30 degress in one hour.

1 mom found this helpful

Be sure to mark all their clothes w their name-jackets, sweaters, boots, etc--all the stuff they won't always have on.

Remember the pnut allergy rule-I think most schools have them now. I sent a lunch w my son a few weeks ago and completely forgot that rule and gave him pnut butter-Thank goodness no one in his class has a serious allergy.

So much is trial and error though-you'll laugh at it all in hindsight-I'm still figuring it out!

1 mom found this helpful

Well, our transition to Kinder has been free of snags (other than seperation anxiety). My son's teacher will help open lunch items, the bathroom is always well stocked by the janitors, clothing policy is what I would normally send my kid in anyway (why would anyone send their child in flip flops when they know they will be running and climbing anyway?), all school supplies are brought to and left at school before the first day. I would just contact the teacher ahead of time and ask her, "what are some things that make your day harder/easier? What kinds of things do parents do to help children be more independent in your room?"
Don't stress out so much, this will be a time for your daughter and yourself to adjust to changes, and learn to go with the flow. Kindergarten teachers should be prepared for this learning curve at the beginning of the year, and should have things pretty well mapped out for you and your child. This is supposed to be FUN!

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Label everything with their name on it. I agree too with the gloves and hats. I don't know how many times my son has lost a glove at school. Have open communication with the teachers and find out your kid's schedule. This helps when asking about their day and you can already have an idea of what they did.

1 mom found this helpful

The teachers help my little k-grader open things!! No pants with difficult buttons, when they gotta go, they gotta go, and no they dont help with that. You will be surprised at how well and fast they adjust to school.
Only other advice, you are going to need LOTS of tissues for the first day. Nothing could have prepared me for how surreal it would be to leave my child so she could start her new life at school. Her little life flashed before my eyes, and I couldnt believe it went so fast! I didnt cry in front of her, but was def hyperventilating on the way home. I will never forget that day!

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So true that there may not be adults available for opening up difficult packaging. Juice in lunch boxes- capri suns are hard for children, so we always buy juicy juice boxes. The straw is easier to get into the box! I bought a lunch container at pottery barn kids so that it was all there and nothing needed to be opened. Like this one. They fit into most any lunch box.
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/spencer-bento-box...

There is little to no supervision in restrooms. Having your children completely self cleaning is a must! Teach them to get enough TP and to wipe until there is nothing on it!

No tank tops in hot months, and no open toe sandals. They ask that socks and tennis shoes are worn.

I bought cute, stylish clothes for my daughter. I fix her hair with cute bows. EVERYTHING get ruined. Paint, markers, crayons, juice, food, Etc, are always on their clothes and those expensive clothes are now stained play clothes. Buy cheap clothes and things that aren't "good clothes".

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Be involved.
Go to the PTA meetings.
Remember: The older they get, the more they need you. As your child gets to the higher grades, don't think that you don't need to be involved in her school and her activities -- you do. When your child is in high school, she'll need you more than she does when she is in kindergarten. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true.
Fundraisers - you don't have to buy the stuff, you can just send a donation -- what they really need is the cash.
YMMV
LBC

Never send extra clothes to school that you want back. I ran into the problem that if a child had an accident, but didn't have clothes the teacher would use someone else's. O and I wouldn't recommend pants that have hard snaps because there maybe an accident if they can't get them unsnapped.

From MY year in kindergarten I remember a boy named Andy who always came out of the bathroom with his pants around his ankles because he couldn't bend over and pull them up without falling over so our teacher always pulled them up. ;) Boy were the days different then.

Don't be shocked if out of the blue your child writes their name completely backward! Freaked me out when my first one did this! He had been writing his name just fine then did this. The teacher assured me it was normal and he went right back to writing it the correct way later. Phew!