Sharky’s Back To School Tips
It’s that time of the year again!
As much as we would love to tell you to buy your child a whoopee cushion to put under their best friends chair on the first class of the new term, the start of September is a great time to show all our loyal followers that we also have some useful tips for sending the little ones back to the classrooms after their Summer break.
It’s very common that the“back to school” period is way more stressful for parents than it is for children. It can be nerve-racking going into a new year, making new friends at a new school or being taught by a big scary new teacher — but if you do a range of fun, creative things to help the start of the new term, it can be a lot easier to deal with all of the new, exciting but intimidating experiences.
We believe that a healthy, fun and educational school experience is complimented by a healthy, fun, energetic and did we mention FUN home life. So now is the time to practice what we preach!
Tip number 1:
The Egg Timer vs The Gong vs The Rubber Chicken.
What you have here is a simple and fun time management process. We don’t know about you but we’re firm believers that the, sound of a rubber chicken is quite majestic! The three sounds are the perfect way to get the children (and adults!) structured whilst at home, especially during that rushed morning school run, whilst still keeping things fun!
Let us explain… Wake up call, hit the gong once. Breakfast is ready, hit the gong twice. 10 minutes until you need to be leaving the house, hit the gong three times. You can get Household Gongs online, sorry neighbours!
Now onto the Egg Timer. This is for concentration time. Homework after work? Set the egg timer to 30 minutes. Getting ready for school? Pop it on for 15 minutes to put their uniform on and brush their teeth. You get the idea. The best way to get children to love the egg timer is to reward them for good timings. It allows children to see how much time they have left to complete a task and keep things moving to get out of the house!
Now onto our favourite one… THE RUBBER CHICKEN.
We’ve yet to meet a child who doesn’t giggle at the sound of the rubber chiekn. Our suggestion? When the rubber chicken sounds, it’s time for family fun time. This is as a reward for everyone using their time wisely and getting everything done!
Tip number 2:
Get creative with the school lunches.
School lunches are a major social time at school and you’ll want to refuel your child for afternoon success whilst they keep their street cred. This is the opportunity for a bit of fun character building, perhaps with arty sandwiches that look like their favourite cartoon characters, a series of jokes (like the Penguin chocolate wrappers) that they can tell their friends over lunch, or even better a fun prank option — like a wind up set of teeth that move across the table.
School‘s require lunches to be healthy and it can be struggle to get your child to eat their fruit and veggies. By making things fun and interesting, your child is far more likley to want to tuck in!
Pearl & Groove are the best in the business for health inspired cakes, based on the Portobello Road.

Tip number 3:
Start weekly creativity meetings, where your children are in charge of planning at least 4 hours of (non-Ipad) fun each week, that the whole family have to get involved with.
As a parent it can be really tricky to constantly come up with new and exciting acitivites for your children. So why not leave it to them?! As well as collecting fun ideas, it is also your chance to boost your child’s imagination further, and get them practicing their planning and leadership skills outside of the classroom.
You’ll soon be the family who hunts for dinosaurs in the kitchen on Saturday morning or digs for ancient roman artefacts on a Wednesday evening.
Tip number 4:
Get the year off to a great start with epic stationery!
Getting back into that hard-working, learning mindset can be tricky but is made all the easier when you get to do the work with fun and colourful stationery. For the children it can make homework times that bit easier and nothing beats heading into the classroom and comparing pencil cases! For adults, why not kit yourself out with a new personalised diary or notebook to help stay on top of things throughout the term.
Personally we love independent, colour loving personalised stationery brand, Chroma Stationery, who allow you to customise products to make them truly your own!


Tip number 5:
Throw a back to school party. With new pupils joining the class and a long Summer wait for friends to catch up, what’s better than a fun back to school catch up. It’s a great time for both parents and children to swap Summer stories and get back into the school year.


FINAL TIP!
Above all, our main tip is to try and keep things as fun and relaxed as possible! Back to school can be a stressful time but by putting in place some of these simple tips, we’re hoping you’ll be able to drop off some happy children and you both can get going with your day in a positive headspace.
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See more about our party ideas and ideas on our website. You can follow our journey here:
Website — www.sharkyandgeorge.com
