Grade One Tips for Student Success

This post is primarily for families with a child in grade one, but of course will be interesting and helpful to caregivers of all Quilchena students.

Our grade one teachers are Mme Bouchet , Mme Megan, and Ms Petrenko. These tips support their programs, built their years of experience teaching 6- and 7-year-olds.

     

Sleep: it is extremely important for children to get enough sleep as it directly impacts their mental and physical development.

          • Make sure that students have a regular bedtime–even on weekends– that allows them to get at least ten hours of sleep a night.
          • Thirty to sixty minutes before bedtime, all technology is turned off, and it’s time for reading and quiet music.
          • Ensure the bedroom is dark, except for a night light, and no TV is allowed in the room.

Core strength: children who have less core strength have a hard time sitting still at desks and find it harder to sustain focus on active learning.

(From Jamie Spencer’s blog, Miss Jamie, OT)
Some indicators of poor core strength:

          • Does your child change positions frequently?
          • Do they lean on the desktop?
          • Slump over?
          • W Sit?
          • Have difficulty paying attention?
          • Use their “helping hand” to prop themselves up?
          • Do they always lean on the wall, the couch, or you?
          • Are they struggling to ride a bike or tie their shoes?

If the answer is yes, then it’s very likely that the child has poor core strength. Sometimes we are expecting too much of a child who simply doesn’t have the strength in their musculature to sit up for more than a few minutes. So they lean, slump, or fidget to try to get comfortable.

How to help develop core strength:

          • Pumping legs to swing on a swing
          • Walking, running, or biking to school
          • Climbing on playground equipment
          • Yoga, Karate, and Swimming
          • Riding a bike
          • Climbing trees
          • Obstacle courses that you crawl through
          • Crawling through tunnels
          • Skateboarding, rollerskating, using a scooter board or razor scooter
          • Chores that require heavy lifting: carrying laundry, groceries, etc.
          • Chores that involve pushing/pulling: shoveling snow, sweeping, etc.

Students learn at different rates and in different ways, but these tips will support all our learners in being happy and healthy at school.

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