Tuesday Teaching Tips/Tidbits

Music is a MUST

My new assignment this year is Kindergarten at one school in the morning and another elementary in the afternoon.  This means that things are different!  I am not just talking about a different group of kids but the room, the materials and schedules are just, well DIFFERENT!  However, the curriculum is the SAME.  Today, in our curriculum the main objective was teaching "Listening Skills."  In the morning I have a SmartBoard which allows me to set up some cool "sound bites."  So in the afternoon I truly wanted my students to enjoy this lesson too, so....music to the rescue.  I used "Listen and Move" the kids LOVE remembering which sound stands for walking, running, skipping and more.  If you have limited resources make sure MUSIC is the priority.  Anything with a beat is better!

Monday Mom Memo/Moments

TV Shows From Childhood

One thing that makes me smile is sharing shows that I loved as a kid with my kids like: Little House on the Prairie, Giget, Growing Pains, Jem and the Holograms, My Two Dads, and Kate and Alley.  Tonight we added a new one to the list thanks to Netflix.  The kids get to watch "heros" in action.....The A Team.  Too fun!  There is just something about "Classic Television."  GOT TO LOVE IT!!!  Hee, hee!

Cherished Moments

Today I started back to school, officially.  This has been a great summer.  I have to say that one part of this summer that I will never forget is reading with Kimberly.  I have read with my kids since they were inside of me.  But as they have gotten older they have not wanted me to read to them as much and enjoy reading alone in their rooms.  Of course Jayden still loves to have a bedtime story but Kimberly is a lone bookworm.  However, this summer began with us camping at Hells Canyon for Memorial weekend.  Kimberly and I had to drive up later then the rest of the family.  Along the way Kimberly read the first book of the "Hunger Game" series.  I listened for two days and in that time we finished the first book.  When we got home we ended up buying the complete series at Costco.  Kimberly had already read these books in school and LOVED them.  In July when Kimberly returned from her dad's she read the second book to me and today with a biter sweet feeling she read the last pages of Mocking Jay.  The experience is over but our bond that developed is unbreakable. Even at a family picnic we had an archery activity and Kimberly impressed us all by hitting the inner circle of the bullseye.  Doug's comment was to call Kimberly, Kimness after her beloved Katness.  We have even seen the movie (twice, three times for Kimberly) but it is the reading time the intimate moments.  I can't explain the magic.  It is the signature of this summer.  It is one of my "cherished moments," with my sweet Angelfish or should I say Kimness!

Pay Attention to Your Children's Heroes

Do you recognize this show?  Let me tell you this is a favorite Net Flick series at our house.  It is a chance for  Doug and I to re-live our youth while the kids check out a man who has a cool gadget for just about everything and made out of just about anything as well.

However, today we experienced "Mini-Macgyver."  Jayden had gotten in big trouble earlier today for lying so.....(let me mention Doug was mowing the lawn and I was on the phone) Jayden came up to me and said "Mom, don't get mad I am telling the truth (words to mentally red flag)"..."I had a spark in my room and I don't want to go in there I am scared."  Okay, I am thinking what could this possibly mean?  He takes me first to the trash where he threw away a power cord.  OKAY, now I am freaked.  I go to his room where there is a black mark on his carpet and an extremely hot battery sitting next to the mark.  He then tells me that he cut the cord off an alarm clock and touched it to the battery (wait a minute something is missing, I decide to get Doug for back up on this).  As I head outside Jayden in toe, I inform him he could have burned the house down, etc.  Then Doug comes in and gets the important part of the story that the other end of the cord was actually plugged in!!!  He could have been electrocuted!  SCARY!!!! He cries and promise never again, later as we are relaying the story to Grandma and family it comes out, of course he was being MacGyver.  REMINDER: KIDS MACGYVER did all those things to HELP OTHERS!  No sparks!!! 

Moral of the story: Motives Matter!!!