This book is packed full of games and activities to help children feel confident and excited about learning.

During those first few weeks show them how to empty their school bags, put their shoes and coat away and bring you any letters they got to bring home.

All the little moments we spent playing five minute games, or reading with him, slowly but surely building the blocks have lead to this.

Galt Rainbow lab - this kit is fun to do anyway but the pipettes, tubes and little pots are brilliant for basic potion play afterwards using the food colouring. Turn up to the school gates with snacks as they are always ravenous after a day at school, and a little boost goes a long way during those first few months when they come home utterly exhausted from all the information overwhelm and sensory overload. So I started doing bits and bobs, five minutes a day, to help get him ready the best way I knew how.We work closely with publishers and authors to ensure that we offer the best books on the market for your child. Start once you know your school place, mentioning it every so often, then as you approach a month or two before try and have a chat every couple of days or so. Baker Ross have some fab crafting kits which I also got, as these are perfect for rainy days at home.

We all played with them for about an hour, then later Ewan used it as a pool for his hot wheels cars to fly into off the end of a ramp he made. These games are roughly for ages 5-7 and are designed to make homework more fun or to encourage reading, writing and maths at home in an easy way, that doesn’t feel like a chore. There will undoubtedly be moments of blissful family joy and moments where you check your calendar to see how many days until they are back in school but either way I hope these ideas mean at least there might be a few more of the joyful moments.We went with the MATHS chapter as it is full of so many games and is the most straight forward chapter to follow without reading the rest of the book! For some children being able to draw simply requires showing them how to hold a pencil (one block) but for others they need to be shown how to draw each shape individually with support (lots of blocks). It might not pay off today, or tomorrow or even in 8 months time but once you’ve built them you can’t take them away.