Jessica - The Mommy Teacher

School Bus Printable Fun

“I’m going to school on a bus today mom” says my 3 year old as he walks toward the door with his backpack on. He doesn’t ride a bus to school so I reply, “Yes! Let’s pretend to do that Sean Patrick. Are you going to drive the bus or is the driver going to pick you up? ” and the conversation continued as we made our way to the stairs where we pretended to be riding on a bus singing “Wheels on the Bus” and looking out the pretend window pointing things out to each other.

I asked him what friends were riding with us in our imagination and he named his cousin and a few other friends.

This gave me the idea to make this:

He is obsessed with school buses. He tells people when he is six he can ride the school bus. I am hoping he gets to ride one on a field trip this year.

We have a school bus toy that we drive all over our neighborhood road rug that looks something like this:

Fun Time - Country Fun Kids Rugs - 39 x 58 in.

We read “Gus The Bus” pretty often and there are other great school bus books like and and obviously The Magic School Bus episodes and books are great.

So, he had a blast coloring his school bus picture…

And he did a great job drawing the eyes on the faces… one was shaped like a square so he told me that Mckayla had a square eye haha.

Anyway, click on the link below to download the FREE printable if you think your child would enjoy this too. You can help your child practice sounding out their friend’s names or just writing the first letter in their name. Have fun!

[purchase_link id=”3920″ style=”text link” color=”” text=”Download the School Bus Printable now… FREE”]

August 28, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

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!

August 22, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

Building Letters {And Numbers too!}

Let me start this off by saying that this book is one of my new “favorite finds” but it can easily be MADE BY YOU so don’t break out your PayPal account email just yet.

Sean Patrick has been having fun with the book How to Build an A

The pages only give a PICTURE of the letters in block form (not step-by-step) so the book just provides a visual of the letter after you have built one.

But, it does come with the pieces to make /build the letters which is why this is one of my new favorite finds. HOWEVER you can just as easily buy foam at the dollar tree… draw the pieces (straight lines and curved lines) and cut them out to help your little one explore building letters or numbers.

Sean Patrick had so much fun with his little bag of pieces. He carried them around everywhere and he was always either on his way to “Numberland” or “Letterland.” He gave me a great idea to only assist him in making numbers when we were in Numberland (the den) and only making letters when we were in Letterland (the playroom). Kids need to be able to distinguish letters from numbers so this was a great way to compartmentalize the two.

We had a lot of fun with this… especially for my boy who loves hands-on learning. We just play with it here and there…we are not structured in how long or how often we play with this, but here is a glimpse into this activity when we play with it:

I might take the bottom part off of his B and say “If swiper swiped this piece what letter would you have left?” (wait to see what Sean Patrick says) “P” – “I see it too! Let’s find that letter in our book! That silly old swiper – he doesn’t even know that he is helping us make new letters! Your turn to be a swiper…. take one piece away and see what new letter we can find!”

The Letter Construction Activity Set is similar but kind of expensive and you can’t make it. I have an Overhead projector (former teacher here) so I might just have to put it on my wishlist :/ but I am debating that because I don’t think we could keep track of all the pieces if I am being honest with myself!

Letter Construction Activity Set

August 13, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

What Is Your Favorite Coloring / Activity Book? Share in a comment!

The other day a friend instagrammed a picture of her and her son coloring as she drank her cup of coffee. It made me think of my mother-in-law because she is so great about sitting down and participating with my kids as they color or as they play with play dough and many other simple tasks that she makes the most of.

You can purpose tons of learning sitting down with a coloring book…. one page at a time.

You are teaching color recognition, but you are also helping to build your little one’s vocabulary by discussing the pictures. And activity books have lots of little problem solving opportunities to teach with mazes and categorizing (which one does not belong?

Here is one great activity book that teaches the ABC’s and some other problem solving strategies as well…

ABC Animals (Dora the Explorer) (Color Plus Card Stock)

There are MILLIONS of books like this but I want to share this one to share a FEW quick IDEAS that can apply to most activity books…

1) Trace over black with white ….

Tracing with white crayon — Make use of your WHITE crayon!

2) Color inside of bubble letters (not just on pages like this one that are made for them)… I ask “What letter do you want mommy to color?” Then I talk through the formation of the letter “climb down the ladder, frog jump up to the monkey bars, hop across, climb up and down on the other side to make an H” or whatever silly way you want to say it. Then I say…. “Your turn… what letter do you want to color?”

3) For little writers you could draw speech bubbles on your color pages and make your characters talk to each other.

4) Count how many times you see the same object on a page (like the balloons in the next picture)…

Share your favorite coloring or activity books in a comment below and share any tips that you may have for us.

Here or on Facebook

August 8, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

Calendar Templates!

It is August 1st & a few days ago I realized that I needed a new Calendar template for my “To Do” board but also a calendar template that my little man could explore with. So, I spent a good chunk of time developing calendar templates that I liked and that also had TRACEABLE month titles and also included the identical set in the printable with regular month titles.

[Click HERE to become a member – get unlimited access to ALL The Mommy Teacher Printables including this one!

OR CLICK HERE to purchase any one of these Calendar Templates individually from my TeachersPayTeachers Store.]

What can children learn from calendar exploration?

Patterns – The days of the week repeat their same order every week.

Vocabulary – Yesterday, today, tomorrow, weekend, days of the week, month, months of the year, holidays, etc.

Organization – Graphic organizers (like calendars) are so great for kids to be exposed to. They show order and give meaning to our everyday routines.

One-to-One Correspondence – We wrote one number in each square.

Weather Recording – Check out my weather tracking post with the September template attached for free!

Ordinal Numbers – When you say the days of the week in a sentence you would say “Today is August FIRST, tomorrow is August SECOND,” etc.

What did my calendar experience look like with my 3 year old?

I put our calendars on clipboards and we sat down at the playroom table and talked about them while we doodled on our calendars. I sang the days of the week song, the months of the year song, and then we counted how many days were in August. We “x’d” out the days that had already passed. We marked upcoming events with stickers. I prepared him in advance for days that mommy or daddy had something to do so that I can remind him by pointing to the calendar and he can visually see that the event will come and go.

Sean Patrick felt so “official” with his calendar on his clipboard. While I wrote the numbers and upcoming events on my calendar attached to the clipboard, he “wrote” what he wanted to do on his.

He made a lot of markings and said things like “I will go to Maya’s house on Friday, and MeMe will be 70 on Tuesday.” Haha I loved his made-up events. And his MeMe is only in her mid-50’s but one of her sisters told Sean Patrick that she was almost 70 haha.

He even asked me for another “August calendar” yesterday so that was my indicator that he actually had as much fun as I did with this activity.

August 1, 2013 by Jessica | Comments Off

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