Back to School Tips and Tricks

Back to School tips and Tricks

It is that time of year when we have to get the kiddies all organised for school as well as get ourselves organised for the back to school routine. Some states may have already started back to school but I guarantee there will be at least one tip or trick that you will find useful.

• Pack lunchboxes for new children heading off to preschool or kindergarten and have them practice eating from this at home for morning tea and lunch. This helps them be comfortable with opening their containers and lunch pack as well as how to pack them away. It also helps children learn not to eat all their food at morning tea!

• It can also help to give children their morning tea and lunch at the school break times and their afternoon tea at the approximate time that you will be home from school pick up. This is especially useful if your meal times are quite different to that of the school.

• Practice putting on socks and shoes, opening zippers on school bags and putting their lunch box and hat in and out of their school bag.

• Do a trial run of your child's uniform and hat - 6 weeks holidays allows for some serious growing time!

• Label your child's belongings clearly so that they can recognise their name and lost items can easily be found at the lost property. There are lots of great companies producing labels that you can pre-order with your child's name already printed.

• Get your children to have earlier nights during the 5-7 days leading up to starting school up early with aim to be dressed etc at school drop off time so that the morning routine is not a shock when school goes back (or stressful for the mummies and daddies!)

• Keeping your girls' hair tied back will not only keep them cool on hot days but will help to prevent little critters catching a ride! A few drops of tea tree and lemon oil in you water spray bottle, work well to keep head lice away. Remember to wash hats, hair ties and headbands regularily in hot water with some tea tree oil. If you own a hair straightener, give your girls' hair a straighten every week as this will fry them. There are lots of good natural remedies about  that are effective and remember to follow up after the recommended time to kill the cycle.

• For those of you with children starting Kindergarten, starting school can create some very tired little people in your home (this often applies to the bigger kids too!) For the first few weeks of school, it can be helpful try to have afternoon tea ready for when they come home starving as well as planning an early dinner until they get used to big days again.

• Whilst it is not always possible when there are older brothers or sisters, it can also be useful to try to keep extra activities after school to a minimum the first couple of weeks until they get used to the routine.The heat of Summer combined with 5 days of school can certainly take their toll.

• Having a family planner help to keep track of all of your children's in school and after school activities and allows you to see at a glance what you have on.

• Freeze a small water, in addition to their usual drink bottle, to have at lunch on hot days. Frozen fruit such as pineapple, orange, raspberries, strawberries (fruits like apple, pear and banana will tend to go brown) is a great cold treat on a hot day and serve the dual purpose of keeping other foods in the lunch box fresh. If your little one loves their yoghurt, freeze it the night before to keep it fresh for school.

• Ice bricks are fabulous to keep the food in your child's lunch box cool and fresh.

• MWWAH have some handy back to school ideas as well as a checklist  from Inner B. Click here to read more.

• Keep an eye out in our online shop for the soon to be released Additive Free Lunch Box Ideas by Tanya Winfield with great recipes to cook up, ready to stock those lunch boxes.