An open teal The Play Way box with the Ready for School Play Kit contents arranged above it: a silver gym ball, a green skipping rope, five green guides, The Gruffalo, a Twister box, core strength cards, breathing cards, a Think and Thread beading box, mini bean bags, two catch paddles, a spray bottle, an art pad and a packet of balloons.

Three children stand on a rug in a playroom, one bending sideways with an arm reaching over their head, one leaning across to touch a shoulder, and one lifting a leg out behind them with an arm in the air.

A child sits on grass beside a scattered pile of Breathing cards for kids, with a Balloon card face up on the lawn and a Teddy bear card on top of the pile.

Core strengthening cards for kids laid out on a colourful sea creature blanket, a Plank card face up and another card turned over to show the instructions, beside a white The Play Way drawstring bag.

A child walks on their hands across a lawn scattered with yellow leaves while an adult holds their ankles up behind them.

Ready for School Play Kit

Name: Ready for School Play Kit
Brand: The Play Way
SKU: READYFS-01
Price: 197.0 AUD
Availability: InStock

The Play Way

$197.00

$197.00 ~~$0.00~~

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Support their movement, strength, language and regulation skills so that when it’s time to go to school, they have a strong foundation to build upon.

Our therapy team curated this play kit around five areas of development that children rely on in their first year of school, each one building on top of the other. It is designed for a child who can run and climb and say what they want, but who comes unstuck when they need to sit down, follow the rules of the group and concentrate on a task: staying upright at a table, holding a pencil, cutting along a line, following instructions. Whether they are yet to start school or are already there with things being flagged, this kit covers the foundations every child needs for a successful start to school.

The Ready for School Play Kit is an Australian school readiness kit for children getting ready to start school, and for children already at school who need more time on the foundations. It covers gross motor skills, core strength, the vestibular system and proprioception, language and communication, emotional regulation, hand and shoulder strength, and fine motor skills including scissor skills and pre-writing.

It holds a set of parent guides, one for each of the five parts; a Bounce Buddy gym ball with a skipping rope and marbles; a scissor skills workbook and a pre-writing booklet; a Think and Thread beading set; Twister with a Play Way card set; a catch ball set; a pencil case and Creative Projects art pad with scissors, pencils, glue, pipe cleaners and pom poms; core strength cards; animal walks cards with two wooden dice; mini bean bags; nursery rhyme cards; breathing cards with bubbles; emotion cards with balloons, ping pong balls and paper straws; a spray bottle with wooden spoons, paint and brushes; and The Gruffalo.

Every kit also comes with supporting video in The Play Way Hub, included: over sixty play-based activities across five modules, each with four levels, from whole-body movement and core strength through to scissor cutting and pre-writing. Most families using this kit have a child somewhere between 3 and 7, but the tools were curated for what is getting in the way rather than for a birthday.

From The Play Way, built by an OT who has worked with children for nearly 20 years. Ships Australia wide. Contains small parts, including marbles, beads, pom poms, balloons and ping pong balls. Balloons and small parts are a choking risk, the scissors are sharp, and adult supervision is needed throughout. Some items are recommended for ages 3 and up. This kit includes vestibular activities, the movement and balance kind. They are not recommended for a child with an ear infection or epilepsy. Have your child reviewed by a GP before starting them.

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Size guide

Ready for School Play Kit

$197.00

$197.00 ~~$0.00~~

WHAT'S INSIDE

What's in this play kit

A full kit of play-tools, curated to work together.

Parent Guides

Short guides for you (the adult), one for each area the kit covers: gross motor, core strength, language and communication, hand and shoulder strength, and fine motor. Each sets out the four levels we’re aiming to move through, what every activity is developing, what you need, and how to use it.

Breathing Cards and bubbles

A card each for Star, Rainbow, Bubbles and Teddy bear, with the exercise drawn on one side and how to do it on the other, so your child can learn to use their breath to regulate. We love that they fit in a handbag, so they can go with you to all the places and you can practise together in the moments that challenge them. A bottle of bubbles comes in the box too.

The Gruffalo

One story, but many different ways to read it. First you read it. Then you comment on what you can both see. Then you ask questions about it. Then your child paints the characters onto wooden spoons and tells the story back with their own props. This helps build language and communication skills.

Bounce Buddy, skipping rope and marbles

The Bounce Buddy is a gym ball your child lies over and rolls on, which asks their tummy, back and shoulders to get stronger. The skipping rope has a clip in the middle for a peg, so you can both see who is winning at tug of war. The marbles hide in playdough for small fingers to dig out.

Scissor Skills Workbook and Pre-writing Booklet

Two booklets that work together. The scissor skills starts at a snip and works up to cutting around a shape, and its first page sets up the chair, the table and the grip, so that is right from the start. The pre-writing one has four levels, from lines and circles through crosses and squares, diagonals and triangles, and finally arches and swirls, so your child draws the strokes a letter is made of before writing their letters.

Think and Thread beading set

A box of chunky beads, laces and pattern cards. Your child copies the colour pattern first, then works from the shape alone, which is harder because the colours stop helping. One hand holds and the other feeds the lace, so your child practises two hands working together which helps with things like zips and shoelaces.

Twister and Twister cards

The Twister you already know, with a card set we created to take it to the next level. A wide variety of instructions to follow and lots of different movements to keep them on their toes building gross motor skills.

Catch ball set

Two grip paddles and a ball. Throwing and catching asks the eyes and the hands to agree with each other, which is a skill children need for lots of activities at school. It doubles as a station in the obstacle course.

Pencil case and art pad

These are for the fine motor areas of the kit: pipe cleaners for the threading, pom poms to pick up and drop into a cup, glue and paper for sticking down the shapes they cut out. The scissors are the self-opening kind, with a spring that pops them back open after every snip to help them build their endurance while honing their skill.

Core Strength Card Set

One position per card, drawn on the front, with the instructions and a line each for easier or trickier on the back. Inchworm, Plank, Crab, Wheelbarrow, Snake. A QR code on the first page opens the video of the poses. Core strength is what helps them sit up on the mat and at the table.

Animal Walks Card Set and dice

Two wooden dice, each one different, and a card for every animal on them. Roll, land on the panda or the frog, and turn the card over for how to do that walk. Great for transitioning from one activity to the next, when a child has come out of something big and loud and the next thing needs them to be calmer.

Mini bean bags

Soft bean bags, used in the core strength activities and again in the obstacle course and the floor is lava. We love them for throwing, balancing, catching and they’re great for solo or group play.

Nursery Rhyme Card Set

One rhyme per card, illustrated on the front, with the words printed on the back for you to follow along with. Five cheeky monkeys, Incy wincy spider, Heads shoulders knees and toes. Sing them face to face and they get to watch your mouth make each word, which is often how the sounds get picked up.

Emotion cards, balloons, ping pong balls and straws

A set of 30 large and laminated emotions flash cards, each one a face with its name under it, that can be drawn on with whiteboard markers. The balloons, straws and ping pong balls turn blowing into a game, which is where the deep belly breathing happens.

Spray bottle, wooden spoons and paint

These tools are all building fine motor skills. The repeated squeeze of the spray bottle trigger builds hand strength needed for writing. You stick a target up, and your child aims and shoots. The spoons, paint and brushes are for the Gruffalo character activity.

Why we built it this way

The order is the point

The five areas we cover are worked on in a set order: whole-body movement, then core strength, then language and communication, then hand and shoulder strength, and the cutting and pre-writing last. Each layer holds a foundation that the next one is built on.

Built for instructions given once

An instruction at home can be repeated and aimed straight at your child. In a classroom it goes to the group, once. So a lot of this kit is listen, then do: Simon Says, an animal walk rolled on the dice, a Twister card asking for a hop to the blue spot. Your child works out what their own body has to do with what they just heard.

Play-based and action oriented

The whole first section is whole-body movement, much of it outside, collecting sticks and leaves while you are already on a walk. The crab walk, the wheelbarrow walk, the belly breathing and the pushing games just need a wall and a floor. Where we have used a trampoline the guide gives you a version with a pillow instead, because plenty of houses do not have one.

INCLUDED WITH YOUR PLAY KIT

The videos that come with it

Everything in the kit is ready to use from the day it arrives, so your child can be rolling a dice for an animal walk from the moment they open the box. When you want the learning behind it, there is just over three hours of video. The videos open with why the movement and the strength come first. Then they go through all five parts and the activities inside them, showing ways to make each one easier or harder. They are filmed with children doing the activities, so a wheelbarrow walk or a Twister card is something your child can watch first and copy second. There’s a series on scissors and cutting, from how to sit and how to hold them through to cutting a shape out. Plus videos covering belly breathing, animal walks between activities, and nursery rhymes. We'll send your invitation to access it all when your kit ships.

WHO THIS PLAY KIT IS FOR

If school readiness is feeling anything like this:

They start school next year, and I could not tell you whether they are ready or what I should be doing about it.
Everything I find about getting ready for school is letters and numbers, but we’re still working on what comes before that.
They have started school, and the teacher says we need to work on ‘the basics’ but I would not know where to start.

If you have thought any of that, this is the kit we built for you.

Who made this

Kait is an OT. She has been working with children and families for nearly 20 years, and she has four kids of her own. The worry in the year before school is nearly always about letters and numbers, and fair enough, because that is what everything out there is about. What more often gets in the way is if their body can’t hold itself up at a table for long, or can’t communicate where they are needing help. So our therapy team built this kit to start there and work up to the letters and numbers, rather than the other way around. The guides, the card sets and the videos all created and curated by our therapy team, to work together and build a strong foundation for school readiness.

5,000+
Australian children have used our play kits
20 years
of Kait working with children and families

Ready for School Play Kit