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This fall a new group of five- and six year- olds will embark on the first significant milestone of their educational journey— kindergarten. Whether you’ve been through years of preschool or not, the transition into “big kid school” can cause parents and children alike some first-day anxiety. To help ease the transition to independence, Dr. Mary Zurn, vice president of early childhood education at Primrose Schools, suggests several ways parents can prepare their little ones before school starts.

Here are 10 tips to help calm kindergarten jitters:

1. Establish a daily routine

that fits your family’s schedule and ask everyone to do his or her best to stick to it. Begin morning activities at the same time every day. Start at least two weeks before the first day and continue the routine throughout the year.

2. Night-time routines are important too

The whole family can help make mornings easier by taking care of tasks the night before. Pack book bags, complete homework and pick out the next day’s clothes in the evening to avoid morning mayhem.

3. Get your rest

Read a bedtime story early enough in the evening for children to get a good night’s sleep. Many morning issues can be avoided if everyone is rested and ready to begin the day.

4. Read, read, and read some more

It’s often the anticipation of the unknown that makes children anxious about kindergarten. Reading about starting school allows children to imagine their own experience and express their fears. The following books are fun to read and can help children prepare:

• When Mommy and Daddy Go to Work
  
• by Joanna Cole
• First Day by Joan Rankin
• The Babysitter Sings by Phillis Gershator
• Don’t Go by Jane Breskin Zalben

5. Prepare your kindergartener for longer periods of separation in increments

Before leaving your child at school for the first time, have him or her stay with a grandparent or a babysitter for increasingly longer periods of time. This will teach your child to trust that you will always return.

6. Tour the school with your child

Visit the classroom, meet the teacher and tour the playground so the places and faces they will see on the first day feel familiar and safe. Talk about what both of you saw and how fun the different activities looked. Refer to the teacher by name to help your child think of her as a person you know and trust.

7. Set the stage

Talk to your child about kindergarten and help him or her visualize what the day’s activities are likely to be. “On Monday when you go to school, you will see your friends, play on the swings, and read stories. Ms. Smith will be there to help you. It will be a great day! And Mommy or Daddy will be there to take you home when school is over for the day.”

8. Shop for school supplies

Give your child the opportunity to pick out a few items he or she likes to provide a sense of ownership and responsibility in the decision-making process.

9. Say a quick “goodbye” and promise to come back

Give a quick hug and kiss, cheerfully say goodbye and promise to return later. The longer you stay the less confidence your child will have in being “left” at school.

10. Establish a partnership with your child’s teacher

The more comfortable you are with your child’s teacher, the more comfortable your child will be. The more visible the connection between home and school the more secure your child will feel.

With these tips in mind, sit down with your family well before the first day of school, figure out which ideas will work best for you and your child, and start a plan for a stress free start to kindergarten.

Many of you would like to get better grades but aren’t sure exactly what will help raise your marks. You may have trouble focusing or you may get bored easily. You may think it takes too much effort to get better grades. That isn’t necessarily the case. There are some very simple techniques that can help you to focus so that you’ll remember things better, make your studying more efficient, get more studying done in less time, retain more information and to actually get better grades.

1. Study in a Chair at a Table

Do all your reading, writing and studying at a table, sitting upright in chair. Be sure to have good lighting, fresh air and fluids nearby. This is the number one most important technique to getting more out of studying and getting better grades. So many people lay on the floor to study, sit on a bed to study or recline on the sofa to study.

If you are lying down, chances are, you’ll get sleepy and fall asleep. When you are lounging, your mind drifts out of focus. When you are sitting upright, in a well-lit room, your studying will be the most focused. Every hour of studying this way could be worth two hours of studying on the bed or sofa. That means more time for fun.

2. When You Study Set Goals and Take Breaks

Figure out how much work you need to do and how long it will take to do it. Set yourself the goal of completing a certain amount of work and then taking a study break. When you are studying, be very focused on studying. When you take your breaks, get up, walk around, get the blood flowing in your body and brain. If you are studying with a friend, hang out, talk, and socialize. Its harder to take breaks if you leave all of your studying to the last minute hand find yourself cramming like crazy in a 7 hour study session, but it still helps to clear your head. Measured study with break gets the most done without burning you out.

3. Start or Join a Study Group

When you have classes that involve complicated materials or have large volumes of reading, you should consider forming a study group with your peers. Quiz each other and explain things to each other. If there is a large amount of material you may want divide up the research and report back to each other. If you find that you are the one person in the group who knows much more than the others, You may still gain much from the study session. You will be practicing formulating your ideas. So even if you help bring your classmates from a C to a B, you may bring yourself from a B to an A. However, if the tests are highly competitive and graded on a curve, then you need to weigh the value of your study group. Make sure you leave yourself time to study on your own.

4. Know your Strengths and Weaknesses in Testing Types

People vary in how they respond to various types of testing. Some do best at essays, while others do better with multiple choice or short answers. If you are given a choice of testing types choose the ones in which you excel. If you have a weakness in one of these areas, we suggest you learn what it takes to do better. Also make sure you clearly understand what criteria your professor uses in grading.

5. Study a Little Bit Every Day

It’s much easier to study a little bit every day than trying to get all of your studying done in one 10-hour study session each week. You may find that you have more free time to do other things without feeling guilty about a big pile of work waiting for you at home.

6. Choose Classes that you like and find interesting in the first place

Of course if you like a class and find it interesting, you’re more likely to pay attention without getting bored. You are more likely to remember the lectures and the readings. Choose to take classes with interesting lecturers, who help interest and motivate you.

7. Finish Your Assignments On Time

This often proves to be difficult due to conflicts with other classes, work and your social life. Students who manage to read their assignments on time retain longer and require less studying for exams. We know of a few students who kept up with all of the assignments and were able to skip cramming for final exams, much to the dismay of their fellow students. We’re not saying this is easy.

8. Ask Questions and Volunteer Answers in Class

Not only does this get more attention from the instructor, but also it helps to keep you from getting bored or falling asleep. The added benefit is that some Instructors give you extra credit for class participation whether they tell you so or not.

9. Sit in the Front of the Class

We know sitting in the front of the class makes it harder to play tootsie with the person next to you. But sitting in the front will help you to focus and pay attention while helping you to retain more information. It will also help the professor to get to know your face, which may lead to more charitable feelings when grading time comes. Professors are sometimes more lenient on students they know than the faceless students in the back of the class.

10. Actually go to every Class

This technique is often overlooked. Some students might have trouble waking-up in the morning. Others may skip class to go shopping. For most students skipping an hour of class will require several hours of catching-up.

Good Luck. People we know with good study habits are less stressed and require less cramming before exams. They tend to get better grades too.

Time management system for your study can be boiled down to 10 basic principles:

1. Find a place to study where you won’t be interrupted

For some people, it’s the nearest library; for others, it’s a desk or card table in a secluded corner of their home. Whatever pleasant, distraction-free environment you select, you should find a specific place and designate it as the place where studying, and nothing but studying, occurs. Make sure all the materials you need are close by.

2. Reward yourself when you’re done

Let’s say you want to devote the next hour and a quarter to a particularly difficult element of the course that’s been eluding you. Instead of lashing yourself to the mast and braving the elements, promise yourself; say, a listen to a recently purchased CD upon completion of the task. When you start to droop a half-hour into your task, focus on this reward. You’ll boost your morale and make better progress!

3. Be disciplined but flexible and learn to adjust as you go along

Don’t beat yourself up for starting your reading at 10:15 when you had it slotted to begin at 10:10. It’s a waste of energy, and you can’t afford it. Use time overruns to help you make more realistic forecasts next time.

4. Don’t disengage immediately when presented with an unignorable distraction

Before you answer the phone, process the pressing question your roommate is shouting at you or make breakfast for the child who got up a little earlier than you thought she would, take a few seconds to be sure you’ve reached a logical stopping point in your study work. You’ll spend less time spinning your wheels when you come back to the work. Whenever possible, jot down a brief note that will remind you of where you left off.

5. Don’t skip around; first things first

Finish one task before you move on to the next one. Moving from topic to topic takes mental energy. Make the shift only after you’ve completed what you needed to. And remember the planning principle: Get the toughest, highest-priority items on the list out of the way first!

6. If something in your personal study routine doesn’t work for you, toss it and try something new

For some people, study groups are a great idea. For others, they’re a pain in the neck. For some people, absolute quiet is an essential while studying. For others, Pearl Jam on the headphones is a great way to get the motor running. Experiment until you find what makes you most productive and then stick with it.

7. Monitor your progress toward important goals

Schedules and hour-by-hour strategies are nice, but give yourself the freedom to try a new approach when a planning strategy has had a day or two to deliver the goods and hasn’t done so for you.

8. Write everything down

There’s a Chinese saying that goes something like this: “The faintest pencil mark is superior to the clearest memory.” If you got a good idea, commit it to paper. If you finish something, cross it off the list and save yourself the aggravation of finding you’ve duplicated your efforts later on down the line.

9. Bear in mind the complexity of the assignment when you allocate time slots

Aggressive scheduling is one thing, parting the Red Sea is another. If you try to cram too much work into too little time, you’ll reduce your personal effectiveness and increase your frustration level. That makes whatever you have to do next less likely to turn out well. Make realistic time estimates, and adjust them as necessary.

10. Take care of the equipment

Your mind and body are marvelous assets don’t misuse them. Get the sleep you need. Get the nutrition you need. Light exercise on treadmill is a great way to minimize the lingering stress.