My first Mother’s Day in 2004, our baby daughter was 3 months old and still crying all the time. We were a wreck. It was hard to get out. My husband planned a simple, sweet (quick) outing that became our official Mother’s Day tradition. We stopped at a beautiful greenhouse, where fussing was fine, and I was able to shop in peace. We came home and spent the day planting. Simple. Lovely. Lasting. The perfect gift.

As we added children and years, this tradition grew more special to us all.

Reasons to plant a Mother’s Day Gardening Tradition

1. Budget Friendly: The truth is, we’d buy flowers to plant anyway, it’s in our budget for spring. Some years more than others.The gift is the experience. Laughing and enjoying Mother Nature with Mom. Learning about gardening. Passing on a skill to my children. Priceless.

2. Stress Free:  A Husband’s dream. A tradition communicates to everyone how to be involved. No one is spending unneeded time shopping or stressing over me or spending money on “stuff” I don’t need. I love flowers. I love gardening. Time with my family doing something I love is a perfect gift. Of course, they do sneak in little surprises too, like cards or making me breakfast or a garden tool.

3. Picture Happy: We take plenty of pictures to freeze this yearly special occasion. The kids know how much I love pictures. Another simple way to give to Mom.

4. Picnic or BBQ: Planting day just calls for an easy picnic or delicious BBQ, a favorite of mine. Another way to celebrate that’s relatively stress free and fits the theme. My husband runs the show on this meal. No fighting expensive, packed restaurants.

5. A Tradition That Can Grow with Them: As they grow older and move away (sniff, sniff), I want them to always know what they can give Mom for Mother’s Day. No brainer. Not expensive. Send seeds. Send bulbs. Send a gift card to a greenhouse or hardware store that carries flowers. They’ll know I’ll cherish it. I’ll think back to all the times we planted together. And, when they see flowers or plant at their homes they’ll think of me;)

6. Easy and Meaningful to Share: We’ve imposed this tradition on the 4 grandmothers. We send a homemade card with seeds or a gift card for flowers, a flowery-spring kid craft, or occasionally we’ve been able to hand deliver a pretty plant.  My mom loves knowing she’s “in” on our tradition.

May your Mother’s Day Traditions bloom this year, Shelisa

Click the sunflower to read a cheesy Mother’s Day post involving sunflowers.

I’m reminded daily, through other’s life stories, that I am lucky. Children of all ages lose their parents to the unexpected. Life on Earth is so fragile and temporary. I feel summoned to leave behind something tangible for my kids…just in case. A final act of love that I hope would help them heal and grow.

What does this look like for me? It’s “in process”, imperfect, and has a few pieces…

(failed) Scrapbooking: It started with good intentions…handwriting notes among the paper and stickers. With 3 kids in 3 years, I was bound to fail and did. I have a better digital plan that I need to do…eventually or maybe my iphoto is enough. Whatever works for you, photos and stories will always be a wonderful keepsake.

Blog: This very blog started with my kids in mind. I’m writing to fellow parents, but I’m also writing with hope that my kids can read it when they become parents someday, especially the part about being tired and delirious.

Home Movies: One summer goal we have is to transfer all our little mini-dv tapes from our video camera onto DVDs. We store these in the fire-safe, and plan on having many popcorn, family movie parties this summer. Note: Don’t forget when you are videoing your kids, get in there with them. Capture the imperfect moments, we all know that’s the best. Sneak in a story or do a quick video clip of a parenting trick. I always get a vision of Michael Keaton’s “My Life” movie. Sniff, sniff.

The Legal Stuff: This is the consult your lawyer and financial advisor part–powers of attorney, living wills, who gets the kids if you both pass away, etc. We give a copy  in a big envelope for both “spare” couples loaded with information to lesson the chaos if that happens, and we’ll update it as needed.

The Sentimental Stuff: I keep a folder with a few personal documents to my family like letters and funeral guidance, including a playlist in my itunes. After a speech about “stuff is stuff”, I’ve also made a document of a few family heirlooms with pictures to pass down…and directions for a baby shower gift for my kids…just in case. I’ve worked on it 20 minutes here and there…whenever I think of something. Here’s a few examples…

My favorite part of the document, is writing light-hearted lists…must read books and movies, quotes about life, thoughts of faith, some journaling, advice, etc.

My plan is to reread and update this document at least once a year, near Mother’s Day and pray it never gets put to use until my great-grandma version.

Have you started anything like this? What does it look like for you?

Love, Shelisa

When you’re the baby girl in the family, there are no bigger heroes in your life than your dad and your big brothers. No one is stronger. No one is smarter. No one will protect you more…except for the part when big brothers hold you down and spit in your eye or pick you up like a fish or bop you in the nose. As life went on into adulthood, I have mentally kept capes on my dad and brothers.

Nothing has been harder to accept in my life than when one of my big brothers became ill, cape and all. He and his kidneys withered away. He fought through pain to continue to work and parent in a journey that has lasted years. My sister-in-law and nephews now also have capes, by the way….plus shields, swords, light sabers, and super powers. Amazing strength. Impossible to articulate strength. A family of four heroes. It has also been hard to see my parents and stepparents watch their grown son fight against something they couldn’t change. All parents want in life is to keep their babies safe, even their 40 year old babies.

His disease finally made it to remission recently, but my brother needed a new kidney to get beyond being alive and back to living. My brother is adopted, so we wondered how any of us could possible be a match for him? It turns out my dad and I were both a match! In fact, my brother and I have the exact same blood type…which proves what I have known all my life. We are blood related! We like to think God placed my brother in our family knowing he would have a kidney when he needed it, and a spare for later. My dad, “once a marine, always a marine”, kind of a man stepped forward with my stepmom’s support and all the faith, courage, and confidence to give his son life. A new life. Father to son. Friend to friend. I’ve never been more proud of my father…and brother.

The surgery went well, but not without some drama. We (extended family) all left the waiting room with a weight lifted off our shoulders. We woke the next morning to the nightmare news that my brother crashed in the night and became the talk of the hospital. A team of nurses, an army of prayers, and the strongest wife in the world got him to ICU, where he would indeed recover and start gaining strength.

You may know I love finding “Godwinks” in life. Here’s one. The night my brother crashed, the nurse that saved him was named Mary. My dad’s nurse was named Bethlehem. I just knew a guy named Jesus or Joseph would push in the food cart that next day! He went from major problems to amazing the doctors all the way to the regular floor in a few days and home within a week of surgery. A-MAZ-ING! (Insert round of applause for nurses & doctors!)

It’s now been over 3 weeks and they both continue to get good reports. Hospitals and surgeries are a time you are reminded not to take anything for granted. They are a reminder of exactly what is most important in life…family, friends, and love. And, the little things.  It turns out, the little things are almost always the big things.

I will never forget watching the silent strength of worried wives and a hopeful, nervous mother. I will never forget my dad having the nurse wheel him down through significant pain and a morphine haze to the ICU room to hold my brother’s hand, much like I bet he did the day my parents adopted him as a baby. Sometimes at night when I’m falling asleep, I relive that feeling of holding it together all day, then crying on the drive home. Hospital exhaustion.

It’s humbling to watch someone build their strength again. I will never forget watching my dad and brother take their first bites of orange sherbet or cheering their first baby steps.  I’ll never forget seeing my brother’s coloring get better, his swelling go down, and when he told me he can wear his wedding ring again. I didn’t ask him about his cape, because I know it’s never left him.

The teachable moments for our own kids have been deep and wide…everything from how kidneys work, what organs can be donated, the power and comfort of prayer, and the emotions of knowing their grandpa and uncle were in the hospital. I am still wrapping my head around the fact that my dad’s kidney is inside of my brother’s body, working hard. There will be many more weeks of physical recovery for my dad and brother…and their wives…but I’m pretty sure we’ve all recovered a lifetime of faith, hope, and love in this journey…this love story.

Here’s to kidney transplants,  Shelisa

Celebratory sailing. Gut laughs as that silly kite shuffles about in the sky. This lasts about 1 minute 40 seconds. Then it falls. Then it gets tangled. Then so do my thoughts. There goes my moment. There goes my kids smiles. There goes my sanity. Falls. Plummets like that kite.

So, the romantic in me will be thankful the Easter Bunny always sticks new kites in their Easter baskets, but time and time again, I go back to an old stand-by…crate paper.

I made this discovery one windy (exhausted), very windy (out of things to do), blustery (grumpy) day in Ohio. The kids were 4, nearly 3, and 20 months. Had I not taken pictures during those years I may not remember it. I was digging through my cabinet of stuff and out rolls $1000 cash. Kidding. It was crate paper. But to me, on that day, it might as well been.

The enchanted part of my brain thinks it wasn’t windy outside until that crate paper rolled out of that cabinet. When it dramatically plopped onto the crunchy floor, an animated, flowing gust of wind came along with it, winked, and rolled out the open window. Crate paper fluttering, asking to be played with. Invitation accepted.

The wind was best in the front of the house because God wanted the entire neighborhood to see our crate paper parade and a whacked out Mom in sweat pants and chicken grease hair pretending she was in the rhythmic gymnastics world championship.  I gave each child one really, really long piece of crate paper. Perfect for those chubby, sticky hands. It was so windy I didn’t have to give one word of instruction. They spent the next complete hour, that’s like a year in toddler time, running and twirling and laughing their guts out. So did I.

Dear Crate Paper,

I love you. I know that sounds weird because, well, you’re paper, but that day you changed my life. I looked at you in a different light. I should look at everything in different lights. You were always something I associated with birthday parties all twisted or hanging in doorways. Not after this day. You became part of my soul, crate paper. When I see you hanging all neat in rows at the party stores I know you know I know your secret. It is time for me to share this secret with some of my bestest friends on the planet. It’s time to release you from your party prison. They may need your magic. Treat them well. Teach them life lessons as you have for me.

Love, Crazy Desperate Mom who entertains herself with crate paper and stories about crate paper being alive and magical.

Other ways to use crate paper to save your sanity

My favorite: Hand your kid a roll of crate paper and say “Hmm…I wonder what you could do with this?” See what happens.

Have a crate paper hat making contest.

Use it in our medical play kits to make casts on arms, legs, heads, faces.

Use it as a finish line. Let your kids run through, breaking it, until it’s gone.

Fan + Crate Paper + Music (Freeze dance is fun too)

Limbo

Hang streamers on their swing

Tie to the handle bars or back of their bike/trike or weave in the wheels

Wrap it around their playset, kind of like a maypole.

Mummies

Tear it up, glue on paper or stick in a sensory tub

Giant Hair bows or  fake long hair

3 Legged Race

Make a giant room maze by zig zagging it around a room

Oh, crate paper. The stories we weave. Once you embrace the crate paper secret, you’ll start to look at everything that way. Tape…I’ll save that for another day. Tell me…has crate paper made you a better person?

Update: March 2012, Kids Ages 8, 6, 5…Still loving crate paper flying;)

Living in Kansas, we’re all pretty crazy about basketball and March Madness. My kindergarten is also crazy about Dr. Seuss. So it made perfect sense to me to combine the two! Over the course of several weeks, we read a Sweet 16 of Dr. Seuss books. We applied our reading and comprehension strategies along the way and came up with one champion! Congratulations Gerald McBoing McBoing!

Consider a book bracket at home with your family favorites! Or, how about a bracket of animals or foods? Whatever you bracket, you will find a lot of learning and laughs along the way.

With my own basketball bracket in shatters, I find comfort knowing I was involved with one bracket that did very well. –Shelisa

PS. In this post there’s a quick, free 16 bracket!

2. I love gift cards.

3. I love teachable moments.

When the kids hit elementary age, we began utilizing Amazon Wish Lists for the kids’ 4 set of grandparents asking for gift ideas. The kids love sitting with us and finding 7-8 ideas to add to their list, knowing they won’t get it all. And, I love that I don’t have to keep track of it past an email to the grandparents. Even for my youngest, at age 5 or 6 we used it as an opportunity for reading, identifying & comparing numbers, brainstorming, and working within limitations (no, you can’t have that $500 thing).

This year, my 9 year old daughter received an Amazon gift card to spend how she pleases. She held onto it for a month (she’s not impulsive like me). Then, we sat together as she shopped in her various favorite topics: unicorns, greek mythology, legos, and harry potter. This stage of shopping lasted for 2-3 days, in about 30 minute sessions. I was learning mindful shopping from her!

We covered topics all over the curriculum! There was a lot of reading in the product descriptions and reviews. She was constantly using math to add up different totals, estimate, and compare prices. We also talked about shopping strategies, sorting through authentic product reviews, brainstorming, needs vs. wants, budgets, saving, giving, tax, shipping, overhead, marketing, inflation, supply & demand, quality, where products are made & why, and returns. It was a fun, educational shopping time full of stories and opening other tabs to research ideas and her favorite topics. Ex: While looking at the Lego Architecture Series (droooool), we stopped to look at real pictures of the buildings. In the end, after many calculations, she bought some books and a unicorn crossing sign. Her total was just 30 cents under the gift card price! That’s great math!

Geography, Mileage, Customer Service, Tracking…

It seems like just yesterday I was pushing around a 3, 2, & 1 year old in a grocery cart pointing out letters and colors. There’s no doubt shopping will always be an opportunity to learn across the curriculum, but don’t forget the added bonus of online shopping lessons…JAMMIES!

Final suggestion: The Amazon gift card fairy doesn’t not drop by too often. So, who’s to say you can’t “fake shop” online. Play the “Hey Child of Mine, if you had $100 dollars to spend today, what would you buy?” Or, even better, get philanthropic, “Dearest Offspring, if you had $50 to spend helping a homeless person, what would you buy?” Hmmm…I might need to steal my own idea there, but really hit that order button:)

Shameless plug time….Check out my “A-Store” (Amazon) for some of our favorite products.

Happy Online Shopping Lessons,

Shelisa

PS. Dear Amazon, I’m not sure if this is already available, can you give us shoppers an option to donate an item or dollar(s) or round up our total to a charity at checkout?

When I was assigned to write a “tiered lesson plan” for a Differentiated Learning class recently, I knew Tangrams would be a fun topic to build a lesson plan my children (2nd, 1st, PreK) and future students will enjoy. In the process, I have a really cool new (to me) tool for my teacher brain that I’m thrilled to share with you! If you want to see what a formal differentiated lesson plan looks like Click Here!  (Hug your teachers, they study and work hard! )

Here we go! Let’s rock this tangram party. Drumroll please…I introduce you to (or maybe you’ve been doing these for years while I was in la-la land)…a spin on a classic…for the classroom or at home…

The Tic-Tac-Toe Learning Board! My teacher brain spins with possibilities and my gorgeous husband’s to do list just grew. And by the way, my 2nd grade daughter came home with a tic tac toe assignment today from school;)

I designed this specific tic tac toe board around TANGRAMS! The cool thing is you can use this strategy a 100+ ways. We all love choices, so building a lesson around choices does this magic thing to children called buy-in and revs up the excitement level of learning. The very act of choosing and organizing their projects is learning in itself, not to mention it’s in a game format which adds a twist of self-motivation. Brainstorm with me for a minute: chore charts, lunch/snacks menus, home learning, bible verses, new vocabulary words, to do lists, idea board for when kids are “bored”…

Back to the lesson…before they saw the Tic Tac Toe Tangram Board,  I introduced this lesson with my kids by reading Grandfather Tang’s Story by Ann Tompert.

Sweet Grandfather Tang tells his granddaughter a story as he builds pictures to match using tangrams. My 14 page packet is available in my Teacher’s Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers store for $4.99. Click the picture above or the store icons on my homepage sidebar.

I mounted mine on construction paper, laminated, and will keep these with a copy of the book. Also, for higher level thinking, I printed a second copy and colored them in with a sharpie. I glued it on the back so the student has the choice of building with help, or without.

Two things should be noted. First, my daughters didn’t build on the cards. Didn’t expect that. And 2nd, my son didn’t want to play. Bummer. He did listen to the story. I’ll try again during daylight hours. But, the girls loved it! After the story I gave them each a Tic-Tac-Toe Tangram and explained their choices to pick 3 to do over the next week or so, but could do more if they wanted;) We had 2 sets of colored, plastic tangrams that fit the puzzle, which you see in the pictures.

Here’s a closer walk through the Tic Tac Toe Tangram Choices:

Technology Tangrams: Tan Zen App Lite (in the picture above) and ABCya Tangrams is free and fun!

This is how my son often reacts to sensory, which is why l like to keep it in the mix..

Tangram Sensory: Sandgrams! (I used brown sugar)

Notice he pushed all the sensory away…using a tangram;)

I tried a different day with sandpaper tangrams. He liked it!

All this tangraming has made me hungry…Have a Tangram Snack!

Or maybe just a slice of cheese?

Create a Game using Floor Tangrams: Ava’s game was called “Dance and Build”. She asked me to crank up some music. We took turns dancing while a person made a new design. I may have changed the words to some 90s hip hop songs to include the word Tangrams. You’ll never know.

Ava used her Tangrams to write her story. She came up with a “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” format. If they each make a story, I will “publish” all three kids’ stories into one digital book using Mixbook and sticking it in our special “Written by Us” book box. If not, we’ll make a mini-book from CVS.  Here’s a Mixbook I made with Dawson’s USA obsession. 

Welcome to Tangram City!

Tangram Painting of a Windmill with Squiggle Wind

With the ANYgrams activity, Maya decided to divide a heart shape into pieces and she built 3 puzzles for us to solve. This really stretched her brain…and mine!

Here’s a free Tangram Template!

Happy Tangraming! –Shelisa

But occasionally…my pancake artistic talents shine. I give some credit to my dad for starting my pancake affection. He taught me how to make smiley face pancakes with I was about 10. In 1985, it was the only thing he knew how to cook. In 2013, it’s still the only thing he knows how to cook. Love you Dad!

Click on the picture above to read about one, tired 3 toddler morning when a pancake squid with chocolate ink saved my soul.

In my original Pancake Art post, I introduced you to Pancake Jim’s website and talked about how excited I was to get his book AND this cool (cheap–$9) “pancake pen!”  Guess what came in the mail? *Note: I am not paid by Jim or the makers of the Pancake Pen…unfortunately. Sidenote: Dear Food Network, give this guy a show!

And guess what sat on my kitchen counter the next 3 weeks reminding me of how I just can’t do it all while I wrapped up 3rd quarter in my kindergarten class? But it’s ok. One glorious Saturday morning, to kick off spring break, I started with the most obvious STEP 1.

We sat around the island in jammies and looked through Jim’s book while the pan heated up. We unanimously decided to try the dog first, in honor of our beloved Risby’s 2nd birthday that week.

First lesson for the kids “Follow the directions, but also don’t be afraid to do your own thing.”  We designed our dog to look more like our sweet, 60lb lapdog.

And, while I am basically a rule follower by nature, I am a directions skimming, hands-on learner. I need that exploration time before I get serious about studying a topic, even pancakes. A great lesson for the kids too. So, after the puppy dog, we put away the book…and played. Pancake play time. And it…was… epic! First, we had fun. Second, I was shocked at how many “life” lessons (academic, social, emotional) came from our time in the kitchen together, pancaking away. Things like “don’t give up” and “try, try again” and “take chances” and “take constructive criticism well” and “give genuine compliments”, etc.  And third, yum.

I’ll leave you with a few favorites…

As I served this hoop, the kids pointed out it was in the book! They were kind enough to not compare the two. Until my next one…ahem..

Apparently, Pancake Jim is also WAY better at making unicorns. I also (clearly) made this one without referencing Jim.

But it’s ok. After all….I did have a sunflower moment. My favorite was watching my middle kid. My think outside the box, stand on the box kid. It took 20 minutes before she even lifted a fork to eat her butterfly.

Before she could eat the butterfly it was

A monster

A strong man with a hat

A tornado chasing some guy

A control panel

A man who picked a very large gourd

A man under a tree

And, a man looking at the arctic sky with those swirly light things

One of the best Saturday mornings ever. And, we repeated it again on Sunday….and our first morning of spring break. Pancakes have never tasted so good in my life.

Here’s to all your life enlightening pancake making!

Shelisa

PS. When you break a dish at the end of all this pancake palooza just yell “OPAAAAAAA!”

Bring your kids in on the MADNESS at the Sweet 16

We love March Madness. It’s a holiday in our house. We’re amping it up this year, please join us! Click Here to Print a Free March Madness Jr Bracket!

We were pumped to get the kids involved at the Sweet 16 mark last year, which is a more kid friendly starting point for the young ones. After watching us the first few weeks, they loved joining in, and especially loved highlighting the winners. This year we may actually listen closer to my youngest son who, at age 4, called out Butler to be in the final game.

As basketball dominated our TV, we had conversations about tournaments, basketball rules, abbreviations/initials, college, sportsmanship, and kept a whistle around our neck for impromptu basketball drills. And yes, we allow dribbling in the house, I suspect all great basketball players’ parents did.

Here’s some other March Madness ideas that dribble around the curriculum. Pick and choose! 

Jerseys   Click Here for a free printable page of blank jerseys!

Kids can use the jersey cards for various number activities depending on their needs. I left them blank so you or your child can write in the numbers appropriate for their level and your goal. You can also ask them number questions from the real jerseys while you’re watching. Here’s a few ideas:

• Greater than and Less than with 2 jerseys
• Order the jerseys from least to greatest or greatest to least
• Sort the odd and even jersey numbers
• Add the sum of two jerseys. Find which 2 jerseys make the highest/lowest sum.
• Find which two jerseys sum makes an even or odd number.

 100 Hoops Play with Leapfrog’s 100 Hoops toy, shoot and count your way to 100 by 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s in English and/or Spanish; or do the same with any goal you have.

 Mr Swish’s Basketball Store:  I was going to make a “catalog”, and still might for classroom use, but decided to keep it real (me being lazy) by letting my kids pretend shop online using the basketball section of Dick’s Sporting Goods, or go to the actual store.  Either way, a fun way to practice math around basketball!

Mascot Sorting: I’m most excited about this part. I love mascots. I secretly want to be one;) Shh…don’t tell, that’s kind of an embarrassing bucket list item.

That could be me in there…how do you know for sure?

So, here’s the deal. I’m not sure about copyright laws for sharing mascot images that I didn’t personally photograph, like Baby Jay above. I have started a collection of mascot photos of the current Top 25 ranked basketball schools and will keep collecting.

• Sort and graph the mascots by animal, historical figure, or other. You could also stick to one category, like birds or mammals or tigers vs wildcats.
• Write a story using at least 5 different mascots as characters.
• Design your own mascot and share your design to others.
• Alphabetize the mascots’ by their name

Commentator’s Corner:  Students will read various books, articles, team rosters, rule books, etc about basketball then report on a team or player or basketball topic as if they are a sports writer for a newspaper, magazine, or a sportscaster. I’m pretty sure for us, this will turn into some basketball in the culdesac with one person “commentating” at a time;) “Mommy fakes left and  leaves Daddy behind as she drives in for a lay-up.”

Sizing Up the Opponent: Print out a roster of your favorite basketball team.

Dribble it: Kids will dribble as long as they can for 3 attempts without errors. A partner will use a stopwatch to record the data, dribbler will find their average time. Or set up dribbling obstacle courses or take a dribble walk down your street.

Bracketology Geography:  We informally mapped out the Sweet 16  last year with the kids on a blank USA map as we discussed their college options;)

Basketball Art: Students may complete an art project where they roll an old basketball dipped in paint in a box with paper on the bottom.

We’re saving these to use as Father’s Day cards this year!

In the Stands: A Few More Ideas:  Always see what your kids come up with, they may surprise you!

• Students may design a new jersey for their favorite basketball team
• Students may write and perform a cheer or song for their favorite basketball team
• Students may design basketball plays on a basketball coach’s play clipboard

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_shxzlTRK44]

For academically basketball printables for your classroom or home, click here! 

We’re huge March Madness fans! It’s a holiday at our house. We also seem to find numerous teachable moments centered around our favorite sport. I’ve made a basketball themed packet for my Teacher’s Notebook Store and my Teacher Pay Teacher Store for $6 that I plan on using with my kindergarten class.

There’s also several ideas for home or school and a free printable March Madness Jr Bracket on this post! 

For my kindergarteners, I’m also combining Dr. Seuss and March Madness by having a book tournament with 16 Dr. Seuss books! I’ll post a picture later and share our winner later.

One of my favorite things to do, besides screaming my face off for the Jayhawks, is  mapping out where all the colleges are from with the kids and learning about all the mascots.

Here’s to some academic madness in your March!

Shelisa