October, 2013 - The Mommy Teacher

Don’t Just Pin it – Do it! Jack-O-Lantern Art

Recently in my mom group we were talking about how we are more likely to pin, than to DO the activities with our kids.

I admitted that this was a tendency of mine too but that I had recently committed to make a habit to plan on DOING at least one activity from my Pinterest boards a day… which may mean that I need to pick one the night before to make sure I have what I need.

The activity I’m going to share today isn’t one that I had on my Pinterest Board “October Activities” but it will be added today because it was always one of my favorite activities in the classroom and I had fun doing this activity with Sean Patrick.

I read this book so I could show the kids a jack-o-lantern and we could talk about the colors, shapes, and function of a jack-o-lantern Clifford's First Halloween

(If you do not participate in halloween you can still make this craft asa Fall pumpkin).

First, I pulled an orange sheet of construction paper, a brown sheet of construction paper, a black sheet of construction paper, a yellow sheet of construction paper, a white crayon, and a glue stick…. these materials can vary (if you don’t have one of those colors then COLOR a white sheet of computer paper (that is what I did for the stem of the pumpkin).

Yellow piece of construction paper not pictured.

Next, I drew a pumpkin shape with my white crayon onto the black construction sheet of paper. I drew triangle eyes, a nose, and a mouth that you can fill in with yellow construction paper or leave blank. Great time to talk about shapes 🙂

Then, together the kids and I tore the orange sheet into lots of pieces, and we used the glue stick to cover the inside of the shape on everything that we wanted to be orange.

And, we covered the pumpkin (or jack-o-lantern when you glue around the facial features).

Finally, we filled in the stem with brown, the facial features with yellow, and hung it up on our playroom blinds with a clothespin to take pride in our Jack-o-lantern! (If I did it again I would start with the yellow facial features then do the orange).

We had fun, we accomplished something together, and they “worked out” their little fingers which is always a great way to prime them for writing.

This craftivity would be best for a four and up child in my personal opinion, but we didn’t finish this in one sitting and mommy helped A LOT!

After sharing one of these pics on my Instagram, a mommy teacher friend of mine took this approach….

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE that she used what she had, she made an activity geared toward her girl’s interests, and she inspired me to do this spin on the activity too! Thanks Allie!

October 21, 2013 by Jessica | 1 Comment

Bat-Math 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… $Bat Printable$ 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).

October 18, 2013 by Jessica | 2 Comments

DIY Peel & Stick Window Decals

IMG_20131013_082342_031 My mother-in-law just did a super fun and easy Halloween craft with the kids (and me…she brought extra supplies because she knew I’d want to do one too!).

We made ghost and pumpkin window peels/decals and decorated the kid’s bathroom for Halloween. We had so much fun doing this super easy craft that I think we might just have to make our own window decals for every holiday!

Materials for Ghost Window Decals:

transparency sheets
white paper
school glue
permanent marker
googly eyes (optional)
nail polish remover

Step 1: Place a blank paper underneath your transparency (easier to see that you are not writing on your table with a permanent marker).

Step 2: Draw your picture onto your transparency using your permanent marker.

Tip: My 6-year-old had the genius idea to TRACE a picture. Look through a few coloring books or print a picture off the computer of a simple shape to trace.

Step 3: Pour a whole lot of glue inside the outline of your picture and use your finger to “paint” the picture.* Make sure the glue is thick and even across your entire picture. It’s ok if the glue goes out of the lines, you can trim that off later.

Step 4: Place your transparencies on a flat surface to dry. You will be finishing your craft tomorrow. When all of your glue has turned from white to transparent, it is dry. (We let ours sit for about 24 hours).

Step 5: Using a small amount of glue, place googly eyes on your ghost. Wait for the glue to dry.

Step 6: Peel off and stick to your window or mirror! (Getting it started to peel off is the tricky part. Try bending the transparency while using your finger nail to lift it from the sheet. Then gently peel it off.)

Step 7: Use nail polish remover to erase the permanent marker from the transparencies and begin the craft all over again!

*To make COLOR decals, when doing Step 3, add a few drops of food coloring to your glue and mix together while you are spreading it. For our pumpkins, we added 4 drops of yellow to 1 drop of red in the glue and mixed it together to make orange.

Another option is to use fabric paints instead of glue, but 1. I love finger painting with glue, and 2. using glue is a cheaper alternative to fabric paint.

If you do this craft with your children, please post pictures to The Mommy Teacher Facebook page!

October 15, 2013 by Casey | 2 Comments

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!

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…

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!

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).

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!

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!

October 13, 2013 by Jessica | 2 Comments

Simple Chore Chart Checklist – Tidying !

I would classify myself as a “clean as you go” mom. I am NOT a clean freak but I do like a tidy house.

I play with my kids and I pick up after my kids (admittedly) a lot.

With three under three, tidying up after my little tornadoes is an ongoing discipline. But as I approach the ages of chore-chart readiness I wanted to give my little ones a bit of familiarity with the responsibilities they can handle, and those that are age-appropriate.

So, I made a simple checklist of the things that I would like them to be responsible for…. to pick up:

Shoes (We have a shoe basket)
Toys (Toy Chest)
Cups (Sink)
Clothes (Hamper)
Trash (Can)
Books (Book Bin)

I printed my checklist two per page and then laminated it (I have an affordable self-laminator from Walmart) and put this on our fridge with a square of small stickers held by a magnet nearby.

I introduced this checklist by saying that from now on when we are responsible and pick up after ourselves we get a sticker for each thing we pick up. Then we picked up one of each item and put it where it goes, getting a sticker for each one.

Sticker Checklist — Letting him take the sticker off helps develop his fine motor skills!

Now every time my kids pick up and put away something I give them a sticker to put in the box beside the chore. I give my kids stickers now even if I encourage them to clean by singing or ringing a bell… not just if I “catch” them cleaning, but if they do it without me asking I give them two.

Every time my kids put a sticker up, I say “Oooh we are going to fill up all the boxes and we will be able to see how hard we work.” This week our “trash” box is getting full so I asked Sean Patrick what he thinks we pick up the MOST of and what we needed to pick up MORE of so that I can keep him familiar with important math terms.

I am not giving him some big reward for filling up the boxes at this time because I want to get him accustomed to working hard because it pleases God not just to get the incentive. 🙂

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October 11, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

Month: October 2013