An important step that can be prepared for smoothly from August, according to Jeanne-Marie Mangin, a school teacher who has experienced many back-to-schools and gives us her advice for getting
1 – As soon as possible: get back into a good sleep pattern
“On the first day of school, many children haven’t heard their alarm clock go off for months!” laments Jeanne-Marie.
Ideally, you should maintain this sleep schedule during the holidays. If this wasn’t the case during the holidays, consider putting the children to bed a little earlier each night and getting them up earlier to gradually get back into the school routine.
2 – Words to remember the holidays
Take advantage of the holidays to encourage your child to reframe what he (or she) experiences during these beautiful days!
For example, the fish caught (accent review), is it a trout? a carp? (vocabulary enrichment), what was the name of the place? a fish farm? (spelling check). Hey, it’s a word that has the same root as piscine (from the Latin piscis, fish). Why this root? what other words? etc. Make French a treasure hunt!
Keeping a holiday diary in which you note down dates, places, people and a few lines is an excellent exercise in memory and written and oral expression.
For children who don’t like to write, they can participate in oral writing, collect postcards or tourist brochures, read the useful information in the notebook and complete it. A real investigator’s role!
It is also possible to create a digital version of a travel journal. For example, the website myatlas.com offers the possibility of creating your travel journal online for free.
Jeanne-Marie notes that resuming learning activities is especially difficult during the first few weeks of school. Setting up fun expression activities beforehand allows the brain’s executive functions to be gently reactivated .
Quite different from traditional holiday workbooks, the Savio.fr website invites children to go on a journey through illustrated and interactive routes with French language stages and challenges. As fun as a game and as effective as an exercise book!
This is the advantage of this French educational software , designed to help children see or review the entire French program from CE1 to 6th grade, thanks to lessons read by a teacher, interactive exercises with simple explanations and magnificent texts chosen from French children’s literature.
4 – Prepare for a positive year with the “success jar”
The success (or pride) jar is used by many teachers to boost self-confidence. A simple idea to start during the holidays… and continue throughout the year!
Simply choose a transparent jar and put a marble in it for each success: Antoine who took the train for the first time alone, Stella who made a magnificent bouquet with wild flowers, Lucie who obtained her swimming certificate, Malo who walked without complaining during the walk…
Quality time: Take the time with your child to think about the actions that you consider a success together and let him or her place the marble in the jar themselves.
About the Author
