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5 Wait-Time Children’s Games for Crowd Control

LSU’s Mike the Tiger came to my son’s school the other day for a surprise birthday visit!

It was such a memorable experience for ALL of the children.

But, it actually could have been CRAZY and chaotic if I didn’t “think fast” and come prepared with a few ideas to keep the kids somewhat calm.

It could’ve turned into a bunch of injured kids or an injured Mike, but I always keep a few tricks up my sleeve.

Any time I am in front of a big group of kids, I always try to get them to do something along WITH me. So, here are my 5 top picks to fill wait -time or keep crowd control when you have a group of kids to organize.

1) “Silly Says” – Today we played “Mike Says” and everything he did, we had to do. I play this with kids a lot and I just play “Silly Says” – whatever silly thing I do, you do.

2) “Going on a Bear Hunt” – I was at the park once trying to keep the kids away from the sandbox and this chant did the trick!

3) “I Spy” – The classic game – I usually play it in a variety of ways. “I spy something shaped like…. I spy something that starts with…. I spy something the color…. I spy something that sounds like…. I spy something that rhymes with…” You get the picture.

4) “Mirror Fingers” – hold up the same number of fingers that I hold up in a different way.

5) “Imitate my Clap” – this is an old teacher-tactic where the kids simply have to listen and follow the beat that the leader makes.

A couple other easy ones:

1) Coordinate “Little Sally Walker” – you may have to YouTube it if you aren’t sure what that is.

2) Play “Man in the middle.” One person stands in the middle of a circle and throws the ball to someone on the outside (who can’t move their feet). Whoever catches it and follows the rules becomes the man in the middle.

3) Play “Duck, Duck, Goose!”

4) Sing “If you are Happy and You know it” – I always come up with lots of things to add to the song like “wag your tail, hop like a frog, roar like a lion, etc” STRETCH IT OUT! 🙂

May 8, 2014 by Jessica | 0 comments

Painting Circles With Plastic Eggs – Mommy Teacher Spotlight

If you are looking for an activity to re-use those eggs from the egg hunts… look no further.

I love my artsy friend Allie and all the ways she crafts with her kids. Keep reading because she inspired me to do this with my kids today and that is what The Mommy Teacher is all about:

“My girls, AvaKate (3) and Addie (2), absolutely love doing crafts. They would do them all day long if I let them. So, when we woke up this morning, they asked to paint.

We painted yesterday, so I wanted to do something a little different.

They had an Easter egg hunt at school yesterday and I wanted to reuse those annoying, oh I mean amazing, plastic eggs before I secretly threw them away, I mean put them back in their baskets (any Moms with me??).

I took them apart and let them dip it into finger paint (easier clean up) and it made circles on their paper. Addie is really into shapes so she got really excited to see the shapes on her paper. Very simple, but it was exciting for the girls to incorporate their eggs from their egg hunt.

Painting with Easter eggs

You can also see in the picture little pieces of string and paper. My oldest, AvaKate is obsessed with decorating and making gifts… So those elements were her specific request.

I put some glue on their plate and gave them a paint brush and they “decorated” their art. They loved it! And I loved it because it was all stuff I had around the house and it kept them occupied while I nursed my six week old!”

April 19, 2014 by Jessica | 0 comments

How A Non-Artist Paints Murals

I have always admired artists and dabbled in some pitiful attempts to paint, draw, and the like.

My husband actually found a painting that I did and thought his sister gave it to us and said “This is by far the ugliest painting that Kelsey has ever done.” Yeah, I’ll probably never let that one go.

But, that same sweet husband helped me paint words on the walls of our new business, and he isn’t an artist either.

After my years in the classroom, I was gifted an overhead projector from my superstar mother-in-law. This came in handy. I printed the words (in the font that I wanted) onto transparencies (at Office Depot), and then simply projected the image onto the wall.

We then just painted over the shadow of the letters and it nearly looked like someone with art skills had something to do with it. Murals can also be done this way. My friend painted the sportsman fleur de lis onto my son’s wall using our projector too.

sportsman fleur de lis

Get inspired y’all!

February 2, 2014 by Jessica | 0 comments

Show and Tell

James’ class studied astronomy this week (which is probably one of his favorite subjects). For Christmas, James got a kids-size space suit from NASA and told his teacher all about it throughout the week. He was so excited when she agreed to let him bring it to class to show his friends! (I think he was also excited to have a platform to “teach” his class… no fears of public speaking for this guy!)

Even though the kid loves the spotlight, I thought it would be good to prepare him for his show and tell presentation to help him stay on track with the information he wanted to share with his classmates.

We googled “orange astronaut suit” to learn more about it. We read some information together and I asked him what he learned from it. I told him it would be a good idea to write a few questions down so that he could remember to answer them while speaking.

You will notice that some public speakers, pastors, leaders and politicians will state their bullet points in question form; this is a great way for kids to give and receive information as well.

James grabbed his pencil and paper and wrote:

1. When do astronauts wear these suits?

2. Why do they wear these suits?

3. Why are the suits orange?

Little brother wanted to write a speech too…

1. Astronaut?

He worked really hard to write his question down 😉

It also helps to practice a few times (but don’t over-do it because that can add to the nerves). Give them short and simple reminders to speak slowly and loudly so everyone can hear.

Anyway, I wouldn’t let James just bring the astronaut suit to school shoved in his backpack, so I brought it to school for him (and of course I waited to see him give his presentation, camera in-hand). Y’all… my heart was just so proud…

Here is the link to the video.

January 19, 2014 by Casey | 1 Comment

Displaying Art Work

I took my son to see the doctor for his routine “return-from-traveling-with-a-cold” visit. After asking the typical questions about his diagnosis, “Is he contagious?” “What can I give him to stop the ~~whining~~ pain?” my next questions were, “Can I take a picture of your art work?” and “Can I blog about it?” From the look on her face, this was the first time she had gotten asked that question at an appointment.

You see, I fell in love with how she had her own children’s artwork displayed in her patient rooms. After she agreed to allow me to take pictures and blog about them, she showed me around the office to see all of her kids’ art! I just loved it all! It’s so hard to not just love a painting or drawing done by a child… even if it’s just lines and dots.

The ways that she had the different projects displayed turned simple child art into masterpieces… framed and hung as if they belonged in a gallery. What child wouldn’t feel so special to have their artwork displayed so prominently in their home?

This is the one that especially caught my eye:

She took her kids to a local art class and this was the project they did with water colors and crayons. I love this because she framed the same project done by all three kids. It’s beautiful and so cheerful!

These paintings could have easily been placed in their baby boxes and forgotten for years until re-discovered down the road when the kids are heading off to college. Instead, my eyes were immediately drawn to them when I walked into her office.

Arts and crafts stores such as Hobby Lobby and Michaels do custom framing, but you can also just bring them an old frame and whatever artwork/pictures you want to frame. They will cut a matte to fit (that’s the purple part you see between the frame and the picture). The matte is what makes this look so polished.

I also love how she had each of the kids sign their names under their artwork. Real artists in the making!

Here is my other favorite from another of the patient rooms:

What a great idea to allow your child to use his or her own picture in his/her painting! I can’t wait to do something similar soon!

This also made me think of my friend’s house and how she displays her kids’ artwork:

1. I love the wall decal with one of my favorite quotes and 2. I love the fact that this is interchangeable, but still clean. (You can purchase a similar wall decal here on Amazon and the wall mount with clips here).

These ideas are all way better than how I have most of our artwork displayed (I’m pretty sure the whole alphabet will not fit on our back doors):

And obviously my kids now think they can stick anything on the doors since they are now covered in stickers as well.

Here are two other ideas from my house:

Jessica also sent me these two amazing pictures and I am totally going to steal this idea because I love it so much! Let the frame-collecting begin!

How do you display your child’s masterpieces? Please share with us on Facebook @themommyteacher!

January 12, 2014 by Casey | 0 comments

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