Schooling parents to support their children, one lesson at a time.
As I pulled out my Advent Calendar with daily Scripture verses about the anticipation and birth of Jesus, I thought of so many other things that I wanted to do to get ready for Jesus’ party that we all know of as our Christmas Celebration.
So, I made an activity calendar and thought y’all might want to jump on board and remember WHO this month is REALLY all about.
I notice that “coloring pages” are still all the rage, and I actually think so much great conversation and bonding can take place coloring with your kids so I am probably in that mix. My kids and I love to color together.
But, I also like to make templates that I can use for multiple uses.
So, I made a simple but useful and free Pilgrim Hat Activity that I am posting for ALL my TMT followers.
You can use this to talk about who attended the First Thanksgiving.
You can use this to talk about food that we typically eat at Thanksgiving.
Or you can use this to talk about thankfulness of course!
We decided to break out the puff paint and glitter for this one. We ended up finger-painting the globs of puff paint. We had fun, and we talked about the Pilgrims. I reminded him of his school’s Thanksgiving Feast and the Pilgrims costume to make an association. At one point I had to hide the “sugar,” my one year old’s name for glitter, but other than that it was a winner!
Simple, but timely right?
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:
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!
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}
I’ll never forget the day when I was packing lots of monkey puppet printables and crayons on our way to Kennilworth park and my husband said “Jess, no kids are going to be coloring while they are at the park.” And as I recall I said something along the lines of “We’ll see.”
Mmm Hmm… I think you know where this is headed…
Every last printable was colored and taken home, of course. I set it up on a picnic table under a covered awning and the kids re-visited the craft bit by bit.
Now, don’t get me wrong… I FULLY believe that parks are a place to take advantage of the gross motor skills (balance, coordination, running, jumping, climbing skills, etc.) that naturally take place in that setting. And there are SO many great parks in Baton Rouge to wear out your kiddos ;). But, if you are like me, you might pack snacks and other carry-ons that can make your playdates vary and LAST!
Today, I am sharing a printable that could be a great way for kids to observe, record, and note the differences of their local parks.
This printable has different uses for different stage kiddos:
For Toddlers:
Introduce the vocabulary…. “Look! Swings. Where are the swings? Yay! We found the swings. Do you want to swing?”
For Pre-schoolers:
Observe the details…. “Does this playground have swings? What color are the swings? Lets color the swings green so we can remember that this park has green swings!”
For Pre-Kinders:
Record the details…. Put an “x” on the line under the equipment that is not at the playground, try to write the beginning sound or all the sounds you hear on the line under the equipment that is at the playground.
For Kinders:
Write about the details…. “Can you write what you like about the {slide, swing, etc.} at this playground?” “I like to push my friends on the swings so I am going to write that under swings.”
For Kinder Grads:
Compare and Contrast the different playgrounds by making their own scavenger hunt specific to their own local parks/playgrounds.
My final bit of advice for using these: bring clipboards… kids feel so official when they are “recording information” on a clipboard. 🙂
I hope you like this little freebie that you can tote along to the park OR have it out on a table at home after going to a park for some unwind time.
Become a member of my page for just a one time paypal of $5 to access this printable:
I was inspired by another mommy teacher and finally got my act together and started hanging our Fall activities on the blinds of the playroom and it got me SO motivated to purpose even more seasonal teaching moments.
I am not over-zealous… I purpose one activity a day… and today’s activity was “Bat- Math.” I wanted to give y’all the step-by-step breakdown in case you wanted to print this FREE Bat-Math Printable and have some duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh da nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh BAT – MATH. Sorry, had to set the tone for this.
The way that my mini bat-math lesson started is funny…
I found a VERY simple page with the outline of 10 bats in an Elmo activity book (by the Count) and I thought…
Today, Sean Patrick is going to learn that The LAST NUMBER he says when counting is the AMOUNT of bats that there are on this page. (I know that that is an abnormal thought). That is a common core math standard – that children can simply recognize that the last number they say represents the amount in the group they are counting. (Example: If there are 5 bats on the page then when I count 1-2-3-4-5, I know that there are FIVE bats because it was the last number that I said when I counted the last bat).
I started with too many – I will be honest. The page had 10 bats. He can count to 10 but I wish I would’ve started with 5…. which is why I made this free printable with 5 and with 10 because you know your kiddo and can choose.
First I said “Alright Sean Patrick… today lets cover up each one of these bats with skittles. Each bat gets ONE skittle so that we can count how many bats there are. When we figure out the right number of bats then we can eat that many skittles!” (once again… he normally only gets to eat THREE skittles so I wish I would’ve started with my own printable haha).
He covered up each bat (one skittle on each bat) and then started to count. He counted slow – one number for each skittle which is GREAT, but he miscounted because he didn’t count strategically (he started at the bottom and jumped up and around) so I said “Okay baby, try counting from the top then over, and go to the next line so we can count the right number. “
He tried again and he said “ten” but kept counting.
So I said “That was great counting…. lets try it one more time and when I say STOP, try to remember the number that you said!”
He counted it again and then I said “What was the last number you just counted to?”…. he said “five” haha okay this is great….this is the moment I realized 10 was too high to count a group number, and it was the moment that I realized we could work on this one skill all week.
Then we counted it again and I said “Did you hear yourself count to ten…. watch mommy and listen…. I shouted “10!” when I counted to that number and then said “How many?” and he finally said “Ten!”
I said “YEAH! lets celebrate great counting… eat your treats and then we will give all TEN bats a sticker, then we can color them. Let’s put the stickers on in the same “smart way” to count…. from the top to the bottom.
He was content with coloring just one bat so we glued the “finished” product onto a black sheet of construction paper and hung it up on our “fall art” wall…. (which I will share the play-by-plays of those activities next week).
