Back to Work

I'm a substitute teacher today. This week I have been a substitute teacher three times, and I have found that it's odd what I've missed. The quiet of an empty classroom, the pencil and paper smell, or the crowded hallways makes me a little nostalgic.

I was very nervous about coming back to teaching, even substitute teaching. I have worked out the kinks and I've survived with these tips:

1. Be creative with childcare. My children are being watched by my mother-in-law right now. My mom and husband are on stand by for filling in as nanny.

2. Be appropriate. I checked my poopy potty talk at the door, and I'm sans stretchy pants. Showering and mascara were even appropriate.

3. Keep the crazy in check. I know I'm at my best in the morning, so I try to capitalize on that. In the afternoon, I boost my sluggish mood with chocolate, or I call to check in with the kids.

4. Practice the routine. I started setting my alarm for 6am instead of being startled awake by my son jumping on our bed.  The boys can dress themselves in the clothes that were picked out the night before while the baby is still sleeping. We eat breakfast together when everyone is ready. We are a well oiled machine.

5. It's all about food. I stocked up on healthy toddler snacks so the Grandmas aren't tempted to give the boys cookies, donuts, or fast food. I also made some casseroles for the freezer to make suppers easy.

I feel very lucky to have a good balance of family and work life. It's still heavily weighted towards family, but that's the way I like it. I hope it always stays that way.

Fire Proof Balloon

Sitting on balloons is a favorite pastime at our house. The bouncy balloon chair makes my sons giggle, but it's short lived when it pops. The popping elicits even more giggles because that is the surprise. When balloons popping was mixed with fire, I knew we had to try it.

I asked my sons what would happen if I held a balloon over a candle. My 4-year old said that it would make a hole. So I lit a candle and held a balloon over it. A couple of seconds later and it popped. I took another balloon and added water to, then blew it up. I asked again, what will happen? They said the balloon would pop, and the water would put out the candle. So I held it over the candle, but it never popped. My sons were so amazed that they had to try it, but it didn't pop. My husband eventually took the balloon and held it over the flame where there was no water, which caused a small leak. The anticipated big water fall pop didn't happen.

I explained that the water takes the heat away from the balloon, so it doesn't pop. I also explained the safety of matches, candles, and fire. It's okay to take risks in science using proper PPE (personal protective equipment). They need toddler safety glasses.

I did this with high school students over a gas stove. The water balloon didn't pop right away, but with too much heat it will.

Humpty Dumpty

It turns out we could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. We used a bandaid.

In honor of my nephew's birthday, we made cascarones, which are hollowed out chicken eggs filled with confetti used in the Mexican culture to bring good luck. They are also used in the Japanese culture, but they are filled with coins.

I poked a hole in the bottom of 12 eggs using a chop stick. Some people recommend making a pin hole in the other end and blowing out the insides. I wasn't thrilled about putting my mouth on an egg, which gives new meaning to suck an egg. I used the chop stick to scramble the egg enough so it slid out of the chop stick hole. I didn't want to waste the eggs, so I put them through a sifter to catch the egg shells. We made yummy scrambled eggs.

After the eggs were washed and dried, it was time to decorate and fill. We cut paper for confetti, and cut the sticks off of Dum Dum suckers. We carefully put a sucker in each of the eggs surrounded by the confetti, which eliminated any rattling. To seal up the hole we glued tissue paper to the bottoms.

The fun part was making the faces on the eggs. Graham was a little too heavy handed and broke a couple, but nothing that wasn't fixed with a bandaid.

The boys didn't participate in the throwing and smashing of them because they were sent to my nephew for his birthday. I was a little relieved they didn't because it could be confusing about which egg is okay to smash and which isn't. The Mexican tradition is to smash them over someone's head for good luck. Right now I have all the luck I can handle.

 

Taste the Rainbow

Can you taste color? In Skittles it's all about color. Everyone is worried about artificial colors, but those artificial colors make this activity. You should hurry up and do this activity because Mars, Inc is removing all those artificial colors from all of its food products. All that hard food science work developing those colors more than 20 years ago will soon be gone.

I had my boys count out 20 Skittles and put them in a big circle on a plate. I warmed up some water, and had them pour the water in the middle of the Skittles circle. It needs to be enough water to touch all the Skittles. The warm water bleeds the color, and it makes a rainbow of Skittle color. 

I like this activity because it made the boys practice patience. They had to wait to eat those delectable bright tempting Skittles. They had to practice counting and identify colors with this activity. It also made them think about the what ifs. What if they added more water? What if they swirled the colors with their fingers? What if they ate a Skittle; would the color still be there?

We did this activity after supper, so it was a fun dessert for them. Now they ask for the rainbow dessert.

Yogurt Dump Cake

Yogurt is a big deal in our house. The boys have their own drawer for yogurt in the fridge where they can pick out their kind every morning with breakfast. My husband has his own drawer too. When I saw a recipe for yogurt cake for kids, I thought it was perfect. The recipe used the yogurt cup to measure out the ingredients. 

Usually I measure all the ingredients out before I ask the toddler twosome to help. Since they were measuring with the yogurt cup I had them pull their chairs up to the counter and get started. We added the yogurt to the mixing bowl. Then I washed and dried it, so they could use it to measure out the dry ingredients. After the flour was added, I got the sugar out and realized that I only had about a half of a yogurt cup left. So we used powdered sugar instead. I got out the measuring spoons for the baking soda and baking powder, but I'm pretty sure we added double the baking powder. I measured the vanilla, but each of the boys wanted a try, so I let them add more. So in this recipe we added black cherry greek yogurt instead of plain greek yogurt, double the baking powder, and three times the amount of vanilla. This is why I named this cake dump cake. The boys had a good time, and they learned about measuring and baking, which means it was a success. 

The actually recipe is as follows:

1 container of plain Greek yogurt (5-6 ounce cup)

2 yogurt cups of flour

1 1/2 yogurt cups of sugar
1 yogurt cup of vegetable oil

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Pinch of salt
Powdered sugar for the top

The boys even craked the eggs themselves. They were cracked in a bowl first to make sure we took out all the shell. They were so proud of the cake when we had it for dessert. Suprisingly, it tasted really good. 

Teaching Tips

I always thought that I could never teach elementary age children, which is why I only taught high schoolers. However, after being at home with my own toddler age children, I have found that it's not much different. The subject matter has changed slightly: potty in the toilet; chickens don't have a penis. So whether you are teaching your own children or a teaching professional, enjoy these tips.

1.      Know your shit. If you don't know what your talking about, no one else will either.

2.      Practice your smile. If you aren't happy to be giving information, no one will be happy to receive it.

3.      Lay the hammer down! In other words: kick some butts, drop kick those kids out of the classroom, mama don't play.

4.      Repeat, repeat, and repeat. I used to tell my high schoolers that I don't teach, I just repeat myself over and over again, but using different words each time.

5.      Just roll with it. Accept that you are never fully in control.

6.      Know your audience. If no one laughed at your first joke, don't tell another one, just try again with the next class. You are bound to have one class that laughs.

7.      Expect success. Set the bar high, but make sure they know it's okay to fail. An F+ is better than an F.

8.      Take risks: have your toddlers help you paint a room, or have high schoolers paint your office.

9.      Give those consequences teeth every time. No means I will keep you in the shopping cart even while your screaming trying to climb out. No means you will scrape gum off the bottom of my desks if you drive your truck down to the field because you are too lazy to walk.

10.  Know when to throw in the towel. If plan A isn't working, move onto plan B, and cross your fingers. Plan C and D should be kept in mind as your hail mary.

Anyone can teach, and it's likely that you can even recall times when you have. Sometimes you don't even recognize it as teaching. It's a learned skill that takes time to develop your own style. Happy teaching.

Balloon Blowing

Many basic chemical reactions use ingredients that can be found in your house. My favorite is baking soda and vinegar. The acid-base reaction creates enough carbon dioxide to blow up a balloon.

First, gather your materials: balloons, empty water bottle, funnel, vinegar, and baking soda. I don't get really fancy with any of the materials needed. If I can't find it, I improvise. Instead of a funnel I used  the tip of a cake decorating kit. It's a very small funnel.

Put the funnel in the balloon, and add two teaspoons of baking soda to it. We put ¼ cup of vinegar into the empty water bottle. Lastly, put the balloon on top of the water bottle without letting the baking soda and vinegar mix. When everyone is ready lift the balloon so the baking soda drops into the vinegar. Hold the bottom of the water bottle, and watch the balloon inflate.

This experiment was so fun that the toddlers wanted to do it over and over again. We started over multiple times, which meant just dumping out the bottle. My boys had a lot of fun deciding how much to put in each time. If they put in more vinegar and baking soda the balloon would get big, and less amounts would be a smaller balloon. It was fun just watching them figure it out. We stopped measuring after the first time, and just started mixing. I love science because the cause and effect learning is tremendous. 

Both toddler boys were able to do almost everything in this experiment. However, they can't do it without making a mess, so keep that in mind.

Cardboard Tubes

Paper towel tubes and toilet paper tubes are great for crafting. I even found 100 “crafting” tubes (toilet paper tubes) for sale in an Oriental Trading magazine, which led me to find some on eBay. I was shocked that people buy them. If I want to do a craft and don't have any handy, I unroll my paper towels and reroll them without the tube. They might be a little loose, but they work with my paper towel holder.

For crafting time my sons made binoculars with those throwaway cardboard tubes. I took two paper towel tubes and cut them in half. I had each of my sons pick out their favorite paint color for their binoculars. My 4-year old had the idea to roll the tubes in the paint instead of using the paintbrush. Then my 3-year old had to try it because his big brother did it. Once their tubes were dry, I took packaging tape and wrapped the tubes together. They had hours of fun with the binoculars. They used them to look at birds, cars, and books.

Another craft from the cardboard tubes is to make dragons. I cut a paper towel tube in half and the boys rolled it in construction paper. We taped the construction paper to the roll and cut off the excess. We cut red streamers and taped them to one opening of the tube for the dragon's fire breathing. We cut out eyes and taped them on the dragon. The boys blew into the tube to make the fire (streamers) swirl around.

These crafts have become toys, and new toys solve any boredom problems. The boys are also very proud to show off their new toys they have made.

Keychain

The boys found our key collection in the junk drawer. They were pretending to lock all the doors until I started looking at the keys and realized that some of those were spares to our vehicles. I also realized that we should really clean out the junk drawer. Instead of having the boys play with our keys we made their own keychains.

The boys rolled out play dough and used cookie cutters to make their favorite shapes. I put holes in the top to match the keyrings. I put the shapes on a wax paper on a baking sheet, and baked them for 4 hours at 200 degrees. Some cracked, but that was to be expected. I took the plastic snaps off of our silicone keychains that we got free when we bought our vehicles. I put them through the holes in the dried play dough and added the keyrings.

A rabbit keychain

We added the keychains to their school back packs and their keys. After some playing they cracked more and chipped. It might have worked better with homemade play dough or modeling clay. Air drying would also work better. The actual play dough is meant to prevent drying out and cracking. We will try again in the future. 

Grocery Store

The grocery store is one of my least favorite places to visit. It has become even less favorable since I took my three kids with me. The nightmare of grabbing everything off the shelves, and ramming their own little shopper carts into each other became a reality. However, I have come up with some easy solutions to grocery store shopping with children.

My first solution is that the adult that does the shopping has to be prepared. Most people make out a shopping list, but you can be more efficient by making a menu for the week. This menu should include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I keep it pretty simple with cereal, eggs, or oatmeal for breakfast; sandwiches, tortillas, or leftovers for lunch; and granola bars or fruit for snacks. So when I make my menu, dinner is what I focus on because that is what will need the most ingredients. This menu will ensure that you don't keep running back to the grocery store during the week for forgotten ingredients. I keep an ongoing shopping list that I add to throughout the week when I know I'm out of something. Your shopping list should go in order of the store layout. For example, if you know the produce section is in the front of the store you should have those items on your list first. So be familiar with the store. You don't need to go down every aisle because this will make it more likely that you will buy more things you don't need or your little shopper will grab more things. I have heard many adults say that they don't have time to make a menu or list. My theory is that you spend the time making the list or you spend time in the store deciding. Either way, its the same time being spent.

Now you need to prepare your little shoppers. The first thing is make sure that they have just eaten a meal or snack before going to the store. I get cranky when I'm hungry, and my boys are similar. So lesson learned, don't go to the store hungry. If your little shopper is going to stay in the cart bring some small toys or books. My 8-month old stays in the car seat, which snaps to the front of the cart. I have toys for her to chew on. My 4-year old and 3-year old can have their own little carts or take turns pushing the big cart, but I give them the expectations before we get into the store. I also go over the consequences and rewards. The consequences are to ride in the big cart, and the reward is to pick out their own cereal and yogurt. I give them each jobs to do as we go through the store. I send one of them to get the carrots while the other gets the potatoes. I keep them each busy during the grocery store trip because they each want to be helpers. The more we go to the grocery store, the more they will know the routine, and they will know how to act. 

These tips have worked for me, but I still don't enjoy the grocery store. These solutions at least make it tolerable though. If we don't break anything or spill anything, I consider the trip a success.