Everyday Teachable Moments - The Mommy Teacher

Imaginative Play Gift Idea

This weekend we went to a birthday party for a big boy 4 year old! Now, since I have 5 and 3 year old boys, I am all too familiar with the likes and interests for little boys this age. It can be pretty frustrating, actually. You buy a gift that is say, $20, and they are more interested in playing with the plastic parts, twist ties and cardboard packaging that it came in.

Two Christmases ago, we hit the idea jackpot for least expensive Santa gift ever… a spy kit! I bought cheap canvas backpacks from Hobby Lobby for $10 a piece and ironed on letters that spelled Agent J and Agent L. Then I filled them with all sorts of random junk from the Dollar Store! $30 per child… not bad at all! So before I went to the store, I was searching the house, trying to decide what my boys’ FAVORITE toys are, and what did I see littered all over my messy house? The contents of their spy kits! I think a Mini-Spy Kit is PERFECT for Austin, the birthday boy!

And BONUS: the idea of a spy kit encourages imaginative or pretend play which is really important for your child’s Physical, Linguistic, Emotional, Academic and Social Education (PLEASE) and development. Here is a great article on the importance of Imaginative Play in Early Childhood.

Agent A is now an official member of SKIP (Spy Kit Imaginative Play)!

All secret agents need to have sole access to their kits via a thumb scan and number code.

Contents: bungee cords, tape measure, shoe laces, combination lock, glow sticks, flashlight, ear phones, watch, calculator, slingshot, mustaches (to maintain their secret identities), key clamps, safety glasses. You can add as many or as few items as you wish!

I taped this letter to the top and copied the text below. Feel free to copy and paste this into a word document, add your own agent names and print for your own use! You’re welcome!

Free for your own use to copy and paste in a word document. Remember to replace the bold words to meet your needs:

Agent A:

Congratulations! Now that you are 4 years old you are officially a spy for SKIP (Spy Kids Imaginative Play)! This spy kit will equip you with anything you may need to carry out your secret spy missions. Beware! Do not blow your cover! Inside your kit you will find mustaches so you can maintain your secret identity at all times.

Only you will be able to access the materials inside of your kit. You must first put your left thumb on the thumb scan on top of your box. Then you must press the access code. We will tell you this code once, and only once. Please memorize it and tell no one! The secret access code is 1 2 3 4.

Welcome to the club, Agent. We know that you will be a good spy and will have many successful missions.

Happy Birthday,

Agents of the SKIP Academy

Agent J, Agent Capital L, and Agent-in-Training lowercase l

May 19, 2013 by Casey | 0 comments

Rainy Day

I had planned to run errands today, but alas, the thunderstorm has dampened my plans. (Under the definition of “parent” you can find the word “flexible” in bold print.) You know that opening scene of The Cat in the Hat where the two kids are just staring out of the window? Yes. That was us today. Even me.

I brought some paper and markers over to the window for us to draw what we saw outside – a simple activity that throws in some drawing skills, vocabulary, sight words, colors, descriptors and more.

Mommy Teacher: “What color is the sky today?”

Without thinking, Leyson said, “Blue!” But then he looked more closely… “Das not blue!”

I explained to him that the clouds are covering the sun and they are filled with water which made the sky look gray.

Mommy Teacher: “And when the clouds fill up with water, the water drips out. That’s called rain! When it is raining this hard and you hear the thunder, that is called a storm.”

I drew a picture of some gray clouds and had him do the same on his paper. Then we each drew rain falling from the clouds, just like we saw outside. I wrote the word “storm” on my paper, and he did the same. Sounds easy enough, right? Because it is! The activities you do with your child do not have to be Pinterest-worthy; they just have to be age-appropriate and fun!

Drawing a picture of what you see and what you are talking about in conversation helps reinforce what you are teaching. Prompt your child to talk about what he/she is drawing. You will need to model both the drawing and the conversation…

Mommy Teacher: “To draw a cloud I am going to make a lot of humps. On the top it looks like lowercase m’s and on the bottom it looks like lowercase w’s. I am drawing gray clouds like we see outside. Can you draw a gray cloud?”

I told Leyson that when the sun comes out, we may be able to see a rainbow. He decided we should also draw pictures of a yellow sun and a rainbow with lots of colors. I wrote each of the words at the top and he did the same on his papers. We talked about the different colors too. He then also decided that we needed to draw one more picture of a cloud and we wrote the word cloud.

Mommy Teacher’s pictures…

Leyson’s pictures…

I am going to keep these pictures up for a few days so we can continue to talk about the weather. We are experiencing a huge temperature drop too so I am sure we will be talking about warm and cold. With an older child you can explain about cool fronts and warm fronts and check out some weather maps online!

Here are some great interactive websites for your older kids:

The best thing about a rainy day? It’s perfect nap weather! Nighty-night!

April 11, 2013 by Casey | 0 comments

Easter Egg Letter Hunt

Anyone else suffering from TMEEIMH (Too Many Easter Eggs in my House) Syndrome? They are everywhere you look at my house – despite my best efforts to sneak a handful at a time into the trash. But, don’t throw them away just yet! These plastic eggs can actually serve as practical learning manipulatives for you! My old teacher self used to actually buy dozens of them each year to use in my classroom for letter matching and rhyming words (I tell you, Jess and I share a brain because she does the same thing, too).

Leyson’s favorite word to read is “Leyson.” Well, that and “pizza.” In a past post I wrote about Busy Bags, I talked a little bit about the significance and progression of a child learning to read and spell his/her name:

WHAT’S IN A NAME?:

Kids are so funny when it comes to learning how to spell their own names. Most often kids learn how to spell their names before they completely understand the concept that letters make words when put together. Take my son Leyson, for example; anytime he sees a word that starts with an L, he says it spells Leyson. He thinks he owns the letter L. The same goes for the letters E, Y, S, O and N… he owns them all. You see, for young toddlers, they will not understand that the ORDER of letters actually makes a difference when spelling words.

Even in my kindergarten classroom, students who knew how to spell their names would sometimes slip into the idea of “owning” all the letters in their name and would write their names out of order. LUIS would spell his name UILS… still thinking that it spelled the same thing. Even more common would be for kids to write their names backwards (SIUL)… and several, get this, would write their names in mirror image! I can’t even do that! All of these are totally normal progressions when your child is learning how to spell his/her name…

Well, here’s another activity that not only teaches the letters of your child’s name, but also teaches the ORDER of the letters – and, of course, we are using Easter eggs because, well, who doesn’t love a good egg hunt?

I first wrote Leyson’s name and underneath each letter I wrote the numbers 1-6. I did the same thing on another sheet of paper, but this time, cut out each letter and number.

We used 6 eggs… the same number of letters in Leyson’s name (no, that’s not a coincidence). I stuffed each egg with 1 letter and the corresponding number and then I hid the eggs around the room while Leyson was in the other room. Then, the hunt was on!

Once he found a letter and number inside of his egg, he had to tell me what he found:

Leyson: “It’s the letter L and the number 1!”

Mommy Teacher: “That’s right! Because the letter L is the FIRST letter in your name! L is the FIRST letter in Leyson!”

See that right there? Right there in the bold, italicized, CAPITALIZED print? See how I threw in some number recognition and some sequencing vocabulary? Sneaky, sneaky, Mommy Teacher!

Now, the reason I have his name and numbers written on another piece of paper is, yes, so he can see the ORDER of his name, but to also see which way the shape of each letter is supposed to go. Kids will recognize the SHAPE of the letter no matter which direction the letter/number is facing, so it’s important to also show them that they have to turn their letters/numbers around.

Reminder: a letter, number, symbol is a SHAPE much like a square is a shape. That’s why it’s so easy to confuse d, b, q, and p – they all have the same shape but are just turned different ways. But, I digress…

Next, I took away Leyson’s cheat sheet and asked him to spell his name.

Juuuust as I anticipated. So I brought out our language from the first activity…

Mommy Teacher: “What is the FIRST letter in Leyson?”

And he grabbed that L and put it underneath his scrambled name.

And the whole time he was singing his very own name song saying each letter of his name to the tune of “Bingo.” It really is magic how quickly they learn things when you tie a tune to it!

What other activities can you do with your Easter eggs? Sorting? Counting? Compare/Contrast? The learning possibilities are endless!

April 2, 2013 by Casey | 0 comments

Buggy Xylophone

There are certain tasks that are fairly simple but when you throw kids into the mix, it can be downright miserable… especially when that task is to simply wait.

Take getting an oil change, for example. Today we were quite lucky to only have to wait about 45 minutes, but there have been times where it has gone longer than the estimated time.

After about 2 minutes of everyone, including my toddler, cooing at my smiley 10 month old, we were already searching for a new game. Here is when I invented Buggy Xylophone (patent pending).

I pulled several items out of the diaper bag and we brushed each of them against the metal rungs of the basket.

Auditory Learning / Music skills

Mommy Teacher: “Does the pen make a HIGH pitched sounds or a LOW pitched sound?” (Make your voice go HIGH and LOW when saying those words.)

Mommy Teacher: “Does the wallet make a LOUD or a QUIET noise on the basket?” (Make your voice go LOUD and QUIET when saying those words.)

Mommy Teacher: “Let’s change the tempo. Can you move the pen fast across the rungs of the basket? That is a fast tempo. Now move the pen slow. That is a slow tempo.”

Listening Skills / Following Directions / Counting / Rhythm

Mommy Teacher: “I can tap 3 times tap tap tap. Now you tap 3 times.”

Mommy Teacher: “Repeat after me tap pause tap tap.”

Compare/Contrast

Mommy Teacher: “Which object is loudest?” “Which has the highest pitch?”

Grouping Like Objects (Science and Math)

Mommy Teacher: “The spoon and the pen are both hard and are both LOUD. The wallet and the purse are both soft and are both QUIET.”

Predicting (Science Skill)

Mommy Teacher: “Do you think the spoon is going to be LOUD or QUIET?”

Opposites

Mommy Teacher: “The pen is LOUD. The wallet is the opposite of LOUD which is what?”

Vocabulary

Loud, quiet, high pitch, low pitch, opposite, tempo, fast, slow

And that, my friends, is how you annoy the other patrons at Walmart… OR that is a great way to entertain your kids while waiting for your car to be ready. I prefer the latter.

March 19, 2013 by Casey | 0 comments

An Activity A Day Can Go Such A Long Way

Ya know, I need to just start off by saying that I am just like any other mom. I go a little crazy when the chores pile up and my house is messy. I don’t always have my meals thought out. I can’t compare myself to other moms…. Because then I’ll just feel like a hot mess. I am not perfect, and I am actually relieved that I am not expected to be. But, like any other mom, I want the best for my kids, and I am always trying to figure out what more I can do to be the best mom that I can be for them.

I give myself lots of grace because I believe there is a huge learning curve when it comes to raising these little impressionable people.

But, when I am not feeling like a very intentional, efficient, or productive mom, I am not completely satisfied in my role. So that is why, both when I was a SAHM and now as a working mom, I get those motivational moments to sit down and plan out something to make the most of my time at home with my kiddos.

Sometimes just ONE thing can make your day feel like a HUGE success. You might sweep one floor, exercise for one small chunk of time, cook one meal, check off one thing from the to-do list, etc.

Well, even though I aim to purpose learning as a mindset and not just in a compartmentalized way my ACTUAL GOAL is to purpose one quality activity a day.

Most of the time, I sit down & think of a daily activity that I think my son would enjoy and one that I know can be used to teach important skills.

In these times, I can get inspiration from:

1) Pinterest… depending on my children’s age or what I am working with on them. Follow me Follow Casey
2) Friends…which is why I have teamed up with an AWESOME mommy teacher, Casey, to share ideas.
3) Teaching experiences… Which Casey and I both share with you here 🙂
4) Connecting with other moms, whether in my mom peer groups, or moms around the world who share what works for them.

But lots of times, I just get inspiration from what I know would be meaningful to my kids.

The other night, my son was missing his Texas cousins…. So, writing a letter to them was naturally the most meaningful activity for us to make the most of.

1) We pulled out some card stock cut into cutesy shapes (Stationary Template Printable here!), as well as some markers, crafty stamps (his idea), pens, envelopes, and mailing stamps. (Stickers would have been fun too.)

2) I asked Sean Patrick what color he wanted for Kaylee, what color he wanted for Presley, and then I let him decorate.

3) Then I asked him what he wanted to say and I re-vamped it a little and read it to him as I wrote it. He also stamped the bottom with his fingerprints and I drew a heart around it.

4) He carefully placed the stamp in the right-hand corner so the mailman knew we paid for it.

5) He helped me say the numbers in the address so he the mail carrier would know where to bring the letter.
6) He stuffed & licked the letter.

7) I let him put it in the mailbox and lift the flag.

Here is the vocabulary he used to tell daddy about our activity: mail, letter, address, deliver (he said “liver it”), mailman, and mailbox.

And as you can see…. just this ONE, SIMPLE activity made our day an unforgettable and meaningful one.

Share your simple, yet meaningful activities with us & other mommy teachers around the world…comment here or post pictures on our Facebook page 😉

March 15, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments