Download

Showing Your Children How They Communicate

Recently, in my “Parenting is Heart Work” group, we talked about how some children have a VERY hard time taking “no” for an answer.

Anyone? Anyone else experience this with their child?

I’m wondering if there are parents who don’t relate to this?!?

Well, children don’t recognize that when they don’t say “Yes ma’am” or “Yes Sir” to our rules and expectations that they appear to “disrespect” our authority.  They simply can’t comprehend why we would deprive them of joy…. ever.   Kids are like “Wait you are my parent… you are supposed to meet all my wants and needs in my timing at all times”  haha they are adorably mistaken.

But, we have a little of that in us as adults as well;  so, instant gratification is not a foreign concept for us either.

Either way, we have a big responsibility to ensure that our children become civilized little beings who can communicate in healthy ways… and unfortunately sometimes we don’t exactly model healthy responses.  As parents we can often be more reactive than anything else.

When Sean Patrick crosses his arms, throws himself on the floor, or loses his control, he doesn’t know that not only are his words destructive but his voice level and his body language also need to be replaced with appropriate responses.

So, I created a visual to show him how he communicates with me.

SS teaching children emotional control

I talked to him about all the different ways we can communicate about something and I made up stories about the children in a few of the pictures.  I strategically “make up” stories that are past examples of Sean Patrick’s impulsive responses.

For the picture of the demanding child crossing his arms I might say “This is Johnny.  Johnny’s mommy said that he couldn’t have a gummy snack until after dinner, and Johnny said ‘NO! I want it NOW!’  Can you see what Johnny’s face and arms are doing?  Do you think he is ready to listen and say “Okay mommy!”  Or do you think he is going to make his problem worse?  (Sean Patrick said he is not listening to his mom and he needs to get in control) .  The way Johnny is speaking to his mom with a mean face and crossed arms shows his mommy that he is demanding she listen to him instead of using his words to talk about the problem.  Can you tell Johnny that he can have a happy heart and wait until after dinner to get his fruit snack?”

We talk about the pictures and we also practice coping and fixing our problems AFTER we have a problem and he cools down I might say, “Sean Patrick what went wrong when we had that problem earlier?  Did you  try hard to calm down and talk about the problem or were you out of control?” (He usually is very honest about his emotions.  After we talk about that then we practice our coping strategies:  breathing, counting, walking out of the room for a minute, etc.

I hope this helps you too!

If you want this printable you can get it HERE

I Like Pinterest Activities That I Can Do ASAP

Y’all, I love Pinterest; I do, but I have to say – I do NOT like activities that I can not do with my kids almost  immediately after I browse.

If I browse during nap time, I want to do the activities that I find that same afternoon.  I like to get my inspiration from pinterest but then I want to actually DO the activities.  Why use a pinboard if I don’t turn the ideas into experiences?

I think I have finally figured out what to do with my not-so-parent-friendly pins…  Lately, if I see an activity that I can’t do right away, I find out a way to make a printable for it.  That way, other moms can simply pin it, print it, and make it happen that day if they want to.

I also like sharing my experiences so that you feel that much more prepared to make the most of the activity… which is why I added an “ideas” page to my printable:

November Activity Printable With Ideas

Yesterday:

1) I made the November Corn Printable  during nap time, but I only printed one page.  I printed a page of corn that had the numbers on the husks.

2) I put a small handful of candy corn in a cup.

**The order of teaching something  is always  I DO (I will talk about it and show my child an example), WE DO (we will do it together), YOU DO (encourage my child to try it on his own).

So, I DO first:

3) I talked to my three year old “Today we are going to use candy corn to fill the ears of corn, but we will stop counting the candy corn when we get to the number that is on the corn.  Watch mommy….  See this is the number ONE, so mommy is going to count out candy corn until I get to ONE.  (I place one candy corn on the corn with the number one and say “One!”) “Okay I am going to stop right there because I counted to the number on the corn.”

WE DO:

“What do you think this number is (pointing to two)?”  (Two).

“Yes and two comes after one.  Can we put the candy corn on that ear of corn while we count to two?” (one, two).

“Wow you are so good at this! Do you know what number this is if this is one, that is two, then this might be….”  (Three!)

YOU DO:

“Yes, your turn, can you put three candy corns on top of the corn?”

4) We did this page again and then we ate the candy corn, but if your little one doesn’t like the taste of candy corn, it’s okay… I included little candy corn cut-outs so you can glue them on your candy corn.  🙂

**** If you want to download this activity, sign up to be a member for just $5 and get Access to ALL of my printables! – November Corn Printable

So,  PIN this printable if you like it, and follow me if you’d like to see all the things I plan to do with my kids each month!

candy corn printable

My original Pin-spiration was Candy Corn Counting – (I literally just ran out of construction paper and I love to make and save printables).  Thanks No Time For FlashCards. 🙂

Isn’t Corny Math is A-Maize-ing ? {Okay, I think I’m done}

{DIY} Personalized Scripture Cards

My latest project is complete… and I’m pretty excited about it.  The best part is that I really had fun sticking pictures on these Scripture cards that I made for our family.

displaying Scripture Cards

I got this idea the other night simply looking through pictures on my phone.

Looking at each picture, I would think of  different Bible verses like:

scripture cards “How sweet it is when brothers live in unity…”(Psalm 133:1)  or looking at a picture of my mckayla enjoying a cupcake and “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8) popped into my mind.  So, I started searching for companies that made picture stickers.  Tons of companies make them, but not sticker pages that could be made of multiple pictures.

Then, I stumbled upon Moo.com and found this:

Create 90 different photo stickers

 

A sticker book of 90 pictures for just $9.99!

sticker pictures from Moo.com

I uploaded lots of my Instagram pictures from my Facebook account into their program (which didn’t take long), and then ordered my book.  When it came in, it felt like Christmas.  At nap time, I printed my Scripture cards & got busy.

Scripture Card Sorting

After printing my Scripture Card Printable I spread out all of the Scriptures all over my table so that I could pick which pictures applied most specifically to each verse.  I was excited to make them really meaningful.

Laminating Scipture Cards

After I finished matching all of my stickers and cards, I laminated them and cut them (you can do both of these things at an office supply store); I laminated mine with my affordable self-laminator  guillotine cutter that I love.  I bought mine at Walmart.

I cut them with my guillotine cutter.

Then, I searched around my house for the perfect place to place them… they are currently in my rooster coffee cups. 🙂

diplaying scripture cards in coffee cups

When I shared the idea with my friend the other day, she asked me,

“How would you introduce these?”

I let her know that I try to 1) Memorize most of the verses so that I can make them a part of our natural conversations.

I occasionally 2) Make observations verbally:

“Sean Patrick, you are being such a kind big brother.  Did you know that the Bible says “Be kind and loving toward one another?”  It makes God, Daddy, and Mommy so proud to see you doing those things.

Sometimes, I 3) Show my kids the pictures and we discuss them…

“See this picture of Mckayla and Meme looking at the sky God made?  The Bible says that the Heavens tell about God’s beauty…. Can you see how beautiful He is when you look at the sky?”

Finally, when they are old enough to read, I will 4) Ask my kids to read me a verse so we can talk about it, how we can see that verse in our lives, and how we can do a better job of living out that verse.

Does that make sense?

My mom did such a great job investing in my five siblings and myself by teaching us lots and lots of Bible verses in such a natural and meaningful way.

I am excited to follow in my precious momma’s footsteps and purpose teaching invaluable truth to my kids.

You could also use these as part of your daily devotions and come up with activities or songs to go with them. 😉

Halloween Game {Heads Or Tails}

When we were “Boo’d”  the other day, we got some stickers in our little surprise basket that I wanted to do something with, but couldn’t quite put my finger on what that should be.

Then, for some unknown reason…. the following activity popped into my brain….I turned the stickers into a “heads or tails” game with just 5 SIMPLE materials:  2 sheets of stickers, one piece of paper, a marker/sharpie, and a coin bigger than the smallest sticker on your sheet.

game materials

 

 

jack-o-lantern coin ghost coin

I placed a jack-o-lantern sticker on one side of the coin, a ghost sticker on another side of the coin,

 

 

and then made a SIMPLE sorting sheet by drawing a line down the middle of the page and one at the top.  I place a sticker on either side of the sorting sheet.

simple sorting mat

I explained to Sean Patrick that we would flip the coin to see if it landed on heads (the jack-o-lantern) or tails (the ghost) and whatever it landed on would get to put that sticker on the chart under the matching sticker.

sorting stickers

playing with my sticker template
The next day we played again using the sticker activity printable I made on the computer and I liked it better because it was easier to do 🙂

I showed him one example and then he took over and got the hang of it.

 

SS Halloween Game I decided to make a printable for this in case you wanted to download it and save it in your files for any teachers, homeschoolers, or for all you organized moms.

As you can see, this halloween printable has other images in case you have different stickers and it has candy corn images in case you want to sort your autumn mix candy instead.  We sorted the candy corn and had a blast…. the dog was a little jealous!

candy corn sort

He had to color each space the matching color before he could eat each candy corn, and he got a little carried away at the end… maybe it was the sugar high.

Mommy wrote the numbers after he counted each side.

candy corn recording sheet

You can also use the other images in this printable to make playing cards for memory or Halloween Go Fish.

If you have younger kids that you would like to do this activity with, you can simply have them sort these items without any of the bells and whistles.  For the sticker activity, Just say “Let’s sort the groups of stickers.  Can you put ALL of the jack-o-lanterns on this side of the chart under the jack-o-lantern and ALL of the ghosts on this side of the page under the ghost?”

Finally, if you want the download it is just around $1 in my TeachersPayTeachers Store,

OR become a member and get this printable along with ALL of my other printables for just a few dollars more!!

 

 

Halloween “We’ve Been Boo’d” Free Download

I was going to wait til’ Monday to share this with you, but I couldn’t wait any longer and I wanted to give everyone enough time before Halloween to make this happen in your neighborhood if you wanted to.

Neighborhood "Boo"
We wen’t “boo”ing in our neighborhood all morning and it was a blast!

Two days ago we were surprised by a basket of Halloween goodies on our doorstep… I still don’t know who did it but it was so fun!

Halloween Surprise

Whoever “boo’d” us  colored jack-o-lantern faces on oranges, gave us two little craftivities, jack-o-lantern stickers, pencils, gummies, glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth, and bib for our baby girl.  They did a great job!  The little seasonal sticker activity was so cute…

sticker activity

I couldn’t wait to keep this going because I knew how much fun we would have putting the little treat baskets together and delivering them.

But, I couldn’t find the template so I made my own, and wanted you to have it!

Boo'd.001

Click here to download.

So, Sean Patrick helped me pick out some little pumpkins and then we went to family dollar and got a jack-o-lantern bucket, a little scarecrow, some spooky ring pops, and colorful sharpies (to decorate the pumpkins).

Halloween Gift Basket

Then I encouraged Sean Patrick to carry the goodie basket to their door, knock, and tip toe away and watch from the car so it could be a surprise.

We had so much fun…he was running!

IMG_0614

And if friends caught us outside it was fun too!

I hope you make the time to do this… It doesn’t have to be fancy…. You could drop off a little ziploc of something with the printable and it would still be fun for the whole family!  You still have time before Halloween!

Disclaimer: the friend already had the chalked word “Boo!”  but I would totally ask a neighbor if they wouldn’t mind and do that because it looked so cute!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

1 2 3