Guaranteed to beat some generic card that you grab last-minute from the drug store, Mother’s Day Printables are a fun way to help the Moms in your life feel loved on their special day. To help celebrate each mom’s unique spirit, I created a simple coloring page with question prompts for kids. Convenient and unique, moms will treasure this thoughtful questionnaire for years to come!
Click HERE to download the Mother’s Day Printables from my Etsy Page.
Time to celebrate our wonderful teachers! Teacher Appreciation Week is May 2nd – 6th this year (2022) and I’ve created two new printable coloring pages. As a simple DIY teacher gift – Simply download, print and color these Teacher Appreciation “Thank You” cards.
Whether it’s a school teacher, sports coach, piano instructor, or even a caretaker – these real life superheroes cannot be thanked enough for taking the time to help us learn and grow!
A simple coloring page that’s easy for even the littlest of ages to provide a gift to their teachers with their own personal touch. The perfect way for your child to show their gratitude and make their teacher’s day extra special!
Click on the images below or HERE to download the printable coloring pages from my Etsy Page.
Looking to give your teacher a little something extra? Below are some fun ideas:
Thank you to all the hard-working teachers!
“It takes a big heart to shape little minds”
We visited Utah a couple of years ago and took a day hike with llamas at Capitol Reef Resort. Avery got paired up with Woody (the smallest and sweetest of the bunch) and absolutely FELL. IN. LOVE. She lead Woody on our hike with the confidence of a well-seasoned backpacker, and soaked up every minute of the 5 mile trek.
Since our trip, she understandably has become llama-obsessed and learned about alpacas as well. After discovering they are smaller than llamas, she concluded they are “even more adorable!” and decided alpacas are her new favorite animal – with llamas as a close second. 😉
Avery asked if I could make llama-themed Valentine’s Day cards for her class celebration this year, so we brainstormed some options and I showed her a few cute favor ideas from Amazon:
She chose the llama bookmarks and we clipped them on to Valentines we created.
Click on the below image or HERE to purchase the printable Llama Valentine from my Etsy Shop. Purchase i-Clips Magnetic Llama Bookmarks: HERE
If you love llamas and have a chance to visit Utah, I highly recommend checking out Capitol Reef Resort. Staying overnight in their covered wagons was a one-of-a-kind, unique experience. We had such a blast and walked away with memories to last a lifetime.
As of today, schools in the state of Illinois are officially closed as a precautionary measure to slow the spread COVID-19 Coronavirus. In order to make this unprecedented time with the kids at home less stressful and more enjoyable, I definitely plan on coming up with projects to keep them occupied. For me, projects like this are not only bonding time to create fun memories with the kids, but I find them especially helpful when their abundance of energy needs to be diverted to something other than going out of their way to annoy their siblings.
For starters – With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, I created the below Faux Stained Glass Shamrock Printable Template.
>>>Download FREE Printable Stained Glass Shamrock Template HERE.
For a 3-D effect, we started off by tracing the lines using School Glue dyed with black acrylic paint.
Note: This step is optional, as you can use the Printable as a coloring page as well.
After the glue dried, we used water colors to paint the image. This gave it a beautiful, uneven, glass-like effect.
Sticking with the Irish theme and in context with current world events, I also created the below Sláinte Coloring Page. As a standard way of saying “cheers” in Irish, “sláinte” [SLAHN-chə] translates to ‘Good Health’ in English – an Irish expression that derives from the Old Irish word slán, meaning “healthy” or “safe”.
Cheers to you and your family during this time of social distancing…. or should I say, “Sláinte!”
“Good luck be with you wherever you go & may your blessings outnumber the shamrocks you grow.”
Jacob was such a fan of the Secret Agent Valentine I designed for him, that I thought I’d use a similar concept to come up with an activity for Evan’s class Valentine’s Day party.
I created a series of worksheets where the kids get to tap into their inner Secret Agent and are challenged with the task to find Cupid’s stolen arrows. Using some of our favorite Love/Heart/Valentine’s Day themed books, the kids dive into the stories a bit deeper to investigate clues, decode messages and figure out who the Arrow Thief is.
Supplies needed:
What do you think, Secret Agent? Can you solve the Valentine’s mystery?
Like the idea but want to use a different selection of books or make changes to the worksheet? Contact me through my Etsy shop and I’m happy to work with you to create a custom mystery experience.
Have a spy-tastic Valentine’s Day!
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”
– Neil Armstrong
My little gamer, Evan, is currently obsessed with Mario Odyssey. Well, anything Mario actually. He’s read the Mario Encyclopedia from front to back several times and – whether he’s played a particular game or not – can shoot off statistics and level details like nobody’s business.
Needless to say, he was super pumped when I suggested Mario themed Valentines so I showed him two cute favor options from Amazon:
Evan preferred the bookmarks, so we went with those. A video game theme with the balance to encourage reading – I like it! 🙂 We came up with a Mario-themed twist on the classic Valentine’s poem (Evan of course had no problem choosing something ‘red’ and ‘blue’) and now he’s ready for his classroom Valentine’s Day party!
Click on below image or HERE to purchase the Video Game Valentine from my Etsy Shop.
V is for Video Games Valentine
As a simple New Year’s Eve activity for the kids, I created this printable activity sheet. Similar to a restaurant kids menu, I thought they can work on this at dinner. Figured it will give them a holiday themed challenge, as well as some fun topics to discuss. 🙂
Click on above image or HERE to download free printable.
Happy New Year!
“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” ― Brad Paisley
As a parent, I feel it’s an essential part of my job to teach my kids how to help out around the house and learn how to become a productive member of the household. They all attended Montessori Preschool, which I feel really jumpstarted them to recognize most “chores” as “practical life skills”. Whichever term you choose to use, I’ve found that most children enjoy helping out with these daily tasks and it’s a great way to teach them responsibility, independence, and self-sufficiency.
Although my kids have been great at wanting to be involved in household duties, as they’ve gotten older it’s been more of a challenge getting them motivated for regular chores — and nearly impossible to get them enthusiastic about completing them on a daily basis.
We’ve tried a good handful of ways to motivate our kids, but the most successful has definitely been the regular use of a chore chart. It not only provides motivation, but has also begun helping us teach them financial responsibility. One key to being successful has been getting the chores organized in writing – then there’s no question about who’s responsible for what on a given day.
After quite a few trial runs and alterations, below is the Magnetic Chore Chart we now use to keep us organized and help our family life run just a bit smoother.
With the understanding that as the children grow, our household expectations may change and their chores will be reevaluated and tailored to their age level. I designed this chart so it can grow with us – easily being able to change and swap out chores as needed. In the future, perhaps adjust allowance amounts as well.
One of the most important things we are trying to teach them right now is that money comes from work, so rather than freely receiving an allowance, our kids earn their money by completing tasks. After they complete a chore, they simply move the corresponding Magnetic Pin to the jar with their name. On Sundays – payday – the kids trade in their pins for the cash they’ve earned.
They each get ONE daily task and ONE weekly task. Having three children, that has been the most realistic expectation for us, as well as not overwhelming to track (for them and myself). Since they also sometimes ask to help with additional chores, I listed those in the ‘Bonus’ section. These are not expected, but an extra way for them to earn cash.
I have to say, it has been nice to pass some responsibility over to my kids — waking up to an empty dishwasher has been glorious! Most importantly, I love seeing them learn new practical life skills and confidently contribute to the household.
“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.” – Denis Waitley
Two of my absolute favorite things: Children’s drawings and unfiltered kid honesty. 🙂
I created this Father’s Day printable because, as a mom, I always enjoy getting questionnaires from my kids. Whether it’s their coloring, personalized drawings or thoughtful answers – I love that their choices come straight from their little hearts. And lets be honest, some of their responses are simply hilarious!
Click HERE to download the above free printable.
Smaller kids may need help writing down answers to these questions, but all kids will enjoy coloring in the pictures and drawing dad with this fun Father’s Day printable!
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I’ve always encouraged my kids to “be kind” and “use kind words” but when there was an excess of crabbiness and bickering in our household, I invested in a book called ‘Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud‘. It literally changed our language around the concept of kindness to the point where “You are dipping in my bucket!” and “Did I fill your bucket?” have become common phrases in our house.
Using a simple metaphor and explaining kindness , this book encourages positive behavior and explains how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation, and love on a daily basis.
To immerse ourselves a bit deeper in the concept of this book, I created a worksheet for the kids to help think through and specifically list out what “fills their bucket” and “dips in their bucket”. It was fun discussing the results as a family and interesting discovering what differences they had based on their individual personalities and/or love language(s).
Click Image to Download Free Printable
In an effort to encourage more “bucket filling” behavior into our daily life, as well as help visualize and reinforce the book’s concept of how “filling other people’s buckets also helps to fill our own”, I created these Gem Jars.
Supplies for DIY Gem Jars:
General rules for our Gem Jars:
We have been using our Gem Jars for almost a year now and I’m happy to report that there has definitely been an increase in kindness and helping behavior around these parts. gem – but hey, that’s the point! To be honest, I am especially proud of those moments when I see them clearly making a conscious effort to do something kind, when otherwise they may not have done so. When they are actively trying their best to be kind, everyone is happier.
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” -Dalai Lama
Projects In Parenting 