Inside Scoop

Authority Figures…. Are you ALL on the same page?

This is a tough one y’all. There can be a lot of authority figures in our kids lives, and well… we don’t always see eye to eye.

But, in my experience, it has shown effective when everyone is on the same page about the BIG issues…expectations, discipline, and roles. Sometimes we can be control-freaks about the little stuff, but we can let go of that stuff when we acknowledge the root of that is PRIDE. Sometimes we need some perspective that other authority figures in our kid’s life CARE about our kids and want the best for them. So, try not to sweat the small stuff. But lets focus on the main things…. we all want to act out of impulse and “maternal/paternal instincts” most often. That doesn’t mean that we are right.  Prov.21:2 states that “EVERY way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

Sometimes we need to “check ourselves” before God.

Here was my check: For a long time I was under-mining my husband’s parenting by constantly sharing with him my early childhood experiences in order to teach him the “right way” to guide Sean Patrick.  I admit that I was not the most supportive wife in the area of parenting for the first two years of our parenting together.

On almost every issue we (all parents) can approach something with our own experience, expertise, and opinions.  BUT I believe the key to authority figures getting on the same page is when we partner as learners TOGETHER so guiding children becomes OUR resources… not my resources VERSUS your resources.  

I am so excited to be in a community group of parents right now going through the book “Parenting is Heart Work” because it opens up so many discussions like how can WE do this better, or this isn’t working so how can WE change “x-y-z” to align with this great tool that WE now have.

Parenting Is Heart Work

Are you seeing the shift in perspective?  Are you experiencing this right now?

Share your thoughts in the comments of this post or share if you have found some resources that both you AND your co-teachers (in parenting 😉 ) have found helpful!

Prevent “b” and “d” Confusion Early… Quick Tips

Following up with Tracing the ABC’s tips about coming up with little sayings to help form the letters, I wanted to share a COUPLE quick tips about differentiating “b” and “d” because they are so easily confused among young learners….

Every time I draw lowercase “b” I say a phrase I picked up from Shannon Hannaman (K Teacher- Baton Rouge)  “Baby ‘b’ fits inside of Momma ‘B’s Belly.”  This phrase has never let me down.  Once kids learn this phrase they seem to automatically know “b” from “d”  – You can also say “Baby ‘d’ doesn’t fit in Daddy “D”s belly.”  Ooh, and maybe “Papa ‘P’ and Princess ‘p’ wait patiently in line.”

I also wrote the word “bed” on an old little tikes bed and it is a word that will be ingrained in my kid’s minds from seeing it so often.

bed 1

Please continue commenting with your experiences…. I love to hear this and it gives me some tips for my little one too 🙂  What are your tips to differentiate “p” and “q”?

A Mommy Teacher named Meg shared this comment yesterday  on the Tracing The ABC’s Book Post– “Just wanted to say that I purchased this yesterday, printed it off, laminated it at home and my 3 year old did every single letter!  I did not expect that at all.  I thought she would get bored, but she loved doing it!  And we had fun coming up with little sayings about each letter (P was a man and then he put his hat on, etc).”

So maybe if “p” is a man/”Papa P” who puts his hat on then “q” is a queen whose hair flips out ! Share Your  Thoughts…. 🙂

“My Baby Can Read” – Mommy Teacher Review

I may get some hate mail for this “review” but it is long overdue.  I have been asked by several people over the last couple years “What do you think about the ‘My Baby Can Read’ program?”  For the longest time I couldn’t give a straight answer because I didn’t know much about it.

But, not too long ago, my sister asked me if I wanted it because she was going to get rid of it and I took it so that I could review it for everyone who has asked me what I think.  And here goes nothing….

The Program Summary: “My Baby Can Read” is a video series that introduces oral vocabulary with the corresponding print on the television screen.  So, for example, there might be an elephant and then the word “elephant” right after the image of the elephant appears. The same number of words will be repeated a few times throughout the video.

The founder of this program has a “manual” that suggests that children nearly master the words in the first video before moving on to the next.  He claims that children can “read” based on these videos.

What I believe: To build strong, efficient, and strategic readers children should have the opportunities to learn along the reading continuum that I demonstrate in a reading ladder in fun and meaningful ways.

Once children have mastered each tier of the reading ladder and have the ability to understand all of the print concepts and listening skills, then they are on the road to reading success.  THEN words can be memorized to help children FLUENTLY read words that they already know how to decode.

Would I use “My Baby Can Read?”  :  I am not opposed to allowing my little one to watch the videos every now and then to promote ORAL VOCABULARY….basically, to reinforce his first language that he is developing to date as a two year old.  BUT I would NOT use this as reading instruction by any stretch of the imagination….that is my personal opinion.   And I would not buy the program just to aid in reinforcing vocabulary, but I am as frugal as they come.  Hope this is informative for you!

Casey’s Activity Sheet Organization

Casey and I think a lot alike as you might have already noticed, so I just have to share her examples of collecting her little one’s work:

Don’t you love how clearly labeled this is? She’ll actually be able to remember which year AND grade that the recording sheets were collected… and she will actually be able to see his growth over the course of the year.

 

Casey said that James helped her create this page in a word document (“meaning that is took forever” -in her words).  But he chose to have the numbers and letters and chose the wordart colors and graphics too.

**The neat thing about the awesome mommy teacher that Casey is, is that this binder wont just be valuable to Casey, it will be valuable to James as well because he HELPED make it, AND it is a collection of his work to be proud of.**

 

Here you might notice that the dividers she chose are: Readiness skills, Writing, and ABC-123 which are perfectly appropriate divider titles for organizing Pre-K artifacts 🙂

 

If you want to read past articles I have posted about collecting your little one’s work for display and for keeps here:

Binder of Fun Work

Folder Finds – Trash or Treasure?

 

Exercise For Your Active Learner!

I talk to a lot of parents of very “active” children who have a hard time getting their little one to sit still long enough to hold a pencil.  But there are so many different ways to incorporate movement into your little one’s learning because there are so many skills to learn that can be meaningfully integrated into activities that require ACTION:

1) learning letters:

2) listening and following directions: dancing along to songs like Shari Sloane’s “Funky Chicken Boogie”

3) numbers: hopscotch!

4) shapes: shape marching

5)  positional words: exercise videos! (my nieces following along with a workout video 🙂

And there are so many more! Feel free to e-mail me if you would like an idea of how you might make a new skill for your little one come alive through movement!

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