Monthly Archives: February 2018

Five Things I’ve Learned as a Teacher That Have Helped Me As a Mom

I consider myself lucky that I got to have a lot of experience working with kids before I became a parent. I’m a middle school teacher, but before my first year of teaching I worked in a day camp with elementary age kids, and I was an aide in a kindergarten and first grade classroom. So I’ve had a lot of time working with kids of all ages. Here are the things I’ve learned that have helped me the most as a mom.

1. Be consistent with expectations and consequences 

Cleaning up after ourselves is an expectation at our house.

This is one of the toughest parts of being a teacher and a parent. Luckily for me, I’ve gotten to figure out what works for me over the course of many years, and each year I get to start over. What I’ve learned is the only rules that exist in a classroom or home are the ones you enforce. If you say you need to clean up your room before bed time but only enforce it once a week, it’s confusing to kids. If you enforce your rules consistently, kids know what to expect and it’s easier on everyone. Consequences can be positive or negative, and they should be positive whenever possible.

2. Always have a plan… and a plan B

Keeping busy during a long delay at the airport.

Planning is one of my favorite parts of teaching, and I enjoy it as a parent as well. At both home and school, I think about what I want to teach or do. I look for activities that will be appropriate for interest and ability level and work with the materials that I have available. But in both school and home life, things do not always go as planned. I have backup filler activities in my classroom if technology isn’t working, or if a lesson ends early. I also have these as a mom. A lot of times, these happen when we are encountering an unexpected wait. We love to sing songs and play the color game. (I see something orange. Can you find it?) I also have a small finger puppet, a spare diaper, wipes, and a disposable changing mat in my purse. Because sometimes things happen unexpectedly, and I always like to be prepared.

3. Kids like having a routine 

Buddy has always loved to read while he waits for me to be ready to play.

Kids of all ages find comfort in knowing what to expect. As my kids enter my classroom, they know that they will always need to pick up papers, set out their homework, and get working on their starter problem every day. I always greet my kids at the door and remind them what to do, but I’ve discovered on days when I’m doing something last minute or have lost my voice, they will do these things without asking. At home, Buddy and I have a routine for after school. We often run errands, so he asks where are we going today when I get him. When we get home, he plays on his own while I change clothes and go to the bathroom. He knows that I will come play after 10-15 minutes, so he doesn’t worry too much about what I’m doing during that time. On weekends, we have our lunch and nap time at consistent times. We also have routines set in place during the summer. One of the things I do is to set a summer schedule of different themed activities each day. (Read more about that here.)

4. Jobs are helpful for both kids and adults

Buddy likes to help emptying the dishwasher.

I’ve blogged about this before, but I will say it again. I think it’s important for kids of all ages to have chores and expectations. In my classroom, I hire students to do different jobs and they are paid in extra credit for each week the job is completed correctly. It makes my life easier, and they enjoy having the responsibility. Buddy has had jobs since age one and several of them started before he could walk. He loves helping, and I love having the help. Read here and here for more details about Buddy’s chores at age one and two.

5. Kids learn more when they are having fun

Buddy was having so much fun learning about shapes.

I’m not sure if all parents are aware of this, but you are one of the most important teachers in your child’s life. Young children learn shapes, numbers, letters, colors, and much more from their parents. Older children learn work ethic and perseverance from their parents, and often they ask parents for help with school work too. No matter what you want them to learn from you, they will learn and remember more if they have fun while they do it. My class plays games or does puzzles almost every day. My favorite teacher resource is TeachersPayTeachers.com. I don’t think many parents know about this, so I’m sharing it here. There are a ton of free and fun resources available for parents and teachers alike. You can search by topic and click on a filter to show only free resources. You can also search for fun stuff, which is another favorite filter of mine. Here are a few favorite, free resources for preschoolers on TPT: Make it Stick pre-K games, Crocodile Snap Alphabet Game, Penguin PreWriting Practice Cards, Customizable Name Mats 

I hope those teacher tips were helpful to you in your life as a parent. If you have any other parenting words of wisdom, please feel free to share a comment.

Cooking With Kids: Banana Muffins

Buddy and I got a snow day last week, and it was Buddy’s first snow day ever! We spent the morning outside in the snow, but I needed an activity to keep us busy in the afternoon. I decided it would be a great time to bake something, and I quickly found this recipe for banana muffins from The Busy Baker. Luckily, we had everything we needed to make the muffins.

We started by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and putting muffin cups in the muffin tin. Buddy thought that was a lot of fun!

Then we put three ripe bananas in a bowl and mashed them with a fork. Buddy and I took turns mashing them, since it was a little difficult for him to do a thorough job of this on his own. 

Next, I measured 3/4 cup of white sugar, and Buddy poured it into the bowl. 

Then, I cracked an egg into a measuring cup, and Buddy added it to our bowl. We also added 1/3 cup vegetable oil and mixed it with a wooden spoon. We needed to take turns again to make sure that everything was combined. 

Next, we measured 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour and put it into a different bowl. 

Then we added the rest of the dry ingredients (1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt) to the bowl and mixed with a fork. This step Buddy could do by himself. 

Buddy helped me pour the dry ingredients into the wet ones, and we took turns mixing it with a wooden spoon. We also threw in some chocolate chips to the mixture, although the recipe doesn’t call for it. (I used a small amount that was left in the bag, which was about 1/4 cup.) Then we used an ice cream scoop to add batter to the muffin cups. Buddy tried to help me with this, but it ended up being a lot easier for me to do it myself.

The muffins baked for about 25 minutes, and then they had to cool. (We did that during nap time.) When Buddy got up from his nap, we each had a muffin as our afternoon snack. They were very moist and so delicious! We both loved them, and Hubby did too! We will definitely be using this recipe again the next time we have to get rid of a few old bananas.

 

Love Note Scavenger Hunt

I first read about doing a love note hunt for Valentine’s Day in Real Simple magazine. They suggested hiding a note about something that you love about your children each day in February. Then on Valentine’s Day, they can look for all 14 notes. I thought it was a great idea, but 14 notes would be too much for Buddy.

After a little thought, I decided to take that idea and make it into a scavenger hunt for Buddy. We usually buy Buddy a small gift for Valentine’s Day, and this hunt will lead to that present. My mom often did scavenger hunts for my sister and me growing up, and we loved them! It’s a special tradition that I want to continue for Buddy.

I cut out 6 hearts out of red construction paper. On each heart, I wrote one thing that Hubby and I love about Buddy. I also put where to find the next clue. Since Buddy is still pretty young, I wanted to keep the hunt clues pretty straight forward. I’m very excited about doing our hunt this year, and I plan to make it a tradition for years to come.

Since it’s not Valentine’s Day yet, I don’t have any fun pictures of Buddy to share. But I wanted to share the idea before Valentine’s Day in case any of you want to do something similar for your family.

Heart Stamping Valentine

Buddy’s school asked every student to make a Valentine for his or her classroom. I decided that we would do the heart stamping activity from last Valentine’s Day (read about it here). Once Buddy finished his painting, we made it into a valentine.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by pulling out a sheet of painting paper, which I taped down with painters tape. Then I pulled out a couple of paper plates, washable kids’ paint, a heart cookie cutter from the dollar store, and two toilet paper rolls. I poured paint on the plates, and I creased the toilet paper rolls to look like hearts. Finally I pulled out Buddy’s smock to keep the paint off of his clothes.

Buddy started with the cookie cutter. I liked using this in addition to the toilet paper hearts because it gave us a different size of heart. 

Once Buddy was done with the cookie cutter, we switched to the toilet paper hearts. We did these in two different colors. 

We let the picture dry for a couple hours. During that time, I asked Buddy about all of the things he loves about school. Once the picture was dry, I wrote his responses into some of the hearts with a black felt tip pen. Then we added a Happy Valentine’s Day and Buddy’s name at the bottom. 

I’m really happy with how this turned out! It was a lot of fun and very easy.