Preparing for School – Inside Out, Back to Front, Wrong Foot
This week we are talking about preparing for school and independence skills – things like getting dressed, having ownership of their possesions and manners for the table. One of the areas that my son has struggled with over this first year at school is getting dressed – no so much the how to get dressed more the how to put everything on the right way around when getting dressed. I can’t even imagine the chaos the ensues when a class of little ones either reception or kindergarten get ready for PE, or go out in the rain and then get ready at the end of school.
Yes I am the mum at the school gate changing her child’s shoes to the right foot, turning a jumper the right way around and wondering how on earth he’s managed to put his trousers on back to front. So even now this is something that we are doing at home to help him get ready for school in year 1.
Materials for Inside Out, Back to Front, Wrong Foot
Shoes that they would typically wear for school
Socks
Shorts, Skirt, Trousers (Typical school wear)
T-shirt
Sweater
Coat
Inside out, back to front, wrong foot prep
Before you start turn some items of the clothes the wrong way around, t-shirts, socks and sweaters normally end up inside out when children take them off. Also pull one of the arms inside out on the coat as this tends to happen as well.
This idea was inspired by an activity I saw in a Montessori classroom way back when I was learning to teach – why not check out these other Montessori ideas for more inspiration to help prepare independence for starting school.
Playing Inside Out, Back to Front, Wrong Foot
Place the clothes and shoes in a pile in front of you and your child. Each pick an item from the pile – starting out jointly decide whether it’s inside out or not. If it’s inside out help your child to develop strategies to identify – seams, labels (even if you cut out the normal tabs use the name labels for your child) – as well as methods to turn them to the right way round.
Once all the clothes are the right way around – it’s time to get dressed – I put some of my own clothes in the pile and put the on back to front getting J to spot which ones were on wrong and asking him what was wrong with it.
We worked on getting clothes the right way around once on – some were taken off and some were left on and turned.
Shoes came next – consistently he gets them on the wrong feet – so we put them on talked about what to look at and how they felt so that they weren’t on the wrong foot.
A tip for shoes is to cut a big sticker in half & put half in each shoe. Put the shoes together side by side & voila!
Life got so much easier when the kids starting putting on their own shoes. Pinning!
LOVE this idea!!! We need lots of jacket practice so this is great!