Preparation for school and Grade 1: What to teach a child in the first place, 1st grade math games

Homework in first grade and in preparation for school: how and how much time to do

Preparing for school is a chance to get acquainted with the future teacher, get used to school walls and regular classes, but not only. A year before school, in the course of training courses for parents and child have the opportunity to train many of the skills that the first-grader will need. How to do it, says Ekaterina Burmistrova, a child and family psychologist, psychotherapist, mother of 11 children.

School Preparation and Domestic Duties
It will be easier for the child to adapt to school if he has household chores, as they teach him to take daily responsibility. In this regard, very good flowers and pets, garbage disposal – something that you can not do regularly. By the time you enter school, and ideally already at 5-6 years old, there should be things that a child does every day: brushing his teeth, making the bed, putting clothes in place. It would be good if a year before school the following things could be added to these daily activities.

To collect a briefcase for school preparation classes, a bag for training. First, the child does it with your help (you say – he adds up), then – himself, according to a drawn list of what should be in the briefcase. For a while, you check the briefcase together: “Let’s see if you folded everything”. And finally comes the stage when you do not check and report what he has forgotten: let him feel the results of his inattention.

Boys generally develop this skill at a slower pace than girls, so be patient.

Where the clothes and shoes in which the child goes to class, he should also know for himself. And also be able to assess whether the clothes are clean or dirty, and put the dirty in the dirty laundry.

Get together on time for class. Use a calendar, know what day of the week is today and on what days there are classes to prepare for school or others (swimming pool, dance, sports section). You can make colorful notes in the calendar, you can draw a clock that shows when to start gathering.

A child’s workplace – independent, not in the kitchen – can also be organized from the moment you prepare for school (and even from 4-5 years). This will prevent students from coming into the kitchen while they are doing their homework. Gradually, the child learns to maintain order in his or her workplace, and parents need to watch the lighting and the correct height of the table and chair.

These are basic skills, without which in the first grade will be difficult – especially if the child is not the only one in the family and it is not permanently assigned to one of the adults (mother, grandmother, nanny). And just in the period of preparation for school these skills of independence can be slowly trained – so that in a year they become a step to the next skills.

How long is it to do homework
Ideally, homework time – both in preparation for school and during study – should fit into the existing daily routine. Every day we get up, wash up, get dressed, have breakfast – and one day it’s time for lessons. It is easier for the child when everything is rhythmic, when the time for homework is clearly marked. After school (returning from other classes) there should be an hour of rest, and then may come the time for lessons.

One of the sicknesses of our time is the lessons, stretched to an excessive amount of time. This means that adults raising a child do not know simple things:

A 6-7 year old child does not feel the time like adults; he does not know how much time has passed;
the longer the child sits in the classroom, the less effective he is.

Normal time to prep for gre homework:

for a first-grader – 40 minutes – 1 hour
2nd grade – 1-1.5 hours
3rd-4th grade – 1.5-2 hours (not 5 hours)
Class 5-6 is 2-3 hours, but no more than 3.5 hours.
If the child does the lessons longer than the specified time, it means that the adults did not teach him to work effectively and keep track of the time. But it’s never too late to start.

How do you teach a child to feel the time? It is most convenient to use all kinds of timers:

Hourglass (not suitable for child dreamers – they will watch the sand fall);
the kitchen timer;
electronic devices;
sports watches with a stopwatch, timer, programmed signals.

How to do your homework
You agree in advance that if a child does the lessons in the allotted time, then you will have time for a lot of things: read a book, play a 1st grade math games, make something, watch your favorite movie, walk – everything you like. It should be profitable for a child to do lessons during this time.

It is in your interest to teach to treat the lessons as an intermediate stage: worked hard, and then there will be joy. Usually children think that you can not spend all day on this boring mission, that there is something else in life, and time limits and good consequences work together successfully.

If the evening is unlimited, and the lessons can be done before the end of the day, there is a situation of a “donkey”: he got up, stubbornly, does not expect anything good, do not scold much – you can not do it. When a child gets used to the fact that it’s all smeared like manna porridge on a plate, he can no longer “collect” himself.

Doing your homework usually starts with the object that is given easily. First, you do written assignments, then oral assignments. Usually, the child is able to keep himself at the table for 15-20 minutes, and then you need a change: ran into the kitchen, squeezed the juice with you and drank it, put on a sandwich, five times circled the table, did some exercises. This changeover-rest should not be long: 5-7 minutes is enough to get air, but not to lose focus.

So, a first-grader can spend no more than 20-25 minutes at a time at a working table, for prep for gre this time is even less – 15 minutes, for children exhausted – maybe even less. And if you sit a child down for more than half an hour, you just lose time – and yours, and his.

Until you’ve built up your homework skills, don’t leave lessons for a while after classes. Favorite extra activities (swimming pool, dancing, drawing) will be another incentive to learn to do lessons quickly and efficiently.

And one last thing. Need to be very praise when the child took responsibility, did something on their own, tried. Praise not the result, but the effort. A junior high school student takes criticism as a blow: “I try, and you say something against…” Focus on effort.

Okay, if a teacher also tends to judge effort, not success. But unfortunately, many teachers believe that censure is the best way to move a person to greater success.

About how to teach a child to independence combined with the realities of the first grade of modern school, we will talk next time.