Mommy Monday: handling the holidays

The holiday season is officially upon us. The thought can strike both dread and joy in every parent's heart! It is a vicious cycle: we want to make sure we savor the special moments, especially with our young children, but in order to fully accomplish that we have quite the list of things we want to do, which makes us so busy that we can't enjoy them at all. Today I want to share my top tip for both fitting in all of the wonderful traditions and memory-making moments, and making sure we don't spend the whole season preparing for everything and miss out on the moments themselves.

So are you ready for my tip?

Make a hybrid bucket-list-schedule-thing for the month of December (or whatever you consider your "holiday season" to be). It should include lots of little things, not too many big things, and many of those little things should be things that you feel an "obligation" to do, for one reason or another (like buying gifts or sending cards).

You would think making a list of lots of little things to do with your family for the holidays would make things more stressful, but planning ahead for all of those little things will actually help you avoid the panicky feeling of, "oh no, it's Christmas Eve and we never even baked any cookies!". I know it sounds frivolous but if we are honest with ourselves, I think most people are with me on this- it may not be baking cookies but everyone has things that, if left undone, stress you out.

I will be using the same advent calendar I made last year for my daughters- you can read more about my muffin tin calendar, with a small activity to do together each day in December, by clicking on the picture:

I planned a small activity for each day, and I'll be changing some of those this year now that the girls are older but many will stay the same (you can see my full list from last year, when the girls were 2, in this blog post). Things like driving around to see Christmas lights, wrapping presents, putting up the Christmas tree, singing a Christmas carol... you get the idea. The key is to break up bigger activities/tasks (like decorating the house) into smaller chunks (like putting up the tree, putting up lights, decorating the tree etc) and turn your "chores" into "activities"!

You don't need a fancy advent calendar to accomplish the same effect though- you can easily write something down for each day on a calendar or even just make a list to hang on the fridge. The important thing is that you make a plan in advance, before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle and things get lost in the shuffle. Just don't get too attached to the plan- that's why I call it a hybrid with a bucket list. Start off knowing that you will want to move things around, switch up the days, or replace things as you go through the season.

The last point to keep in mind is to prepare everything you need for anything you are planning to do in advance as well. This is actually the key difference between stressing out over all the things you want to fit in and being able to enjoy doing lots of fun things without the stress. Buy the gingerbread house kit, pull out the Christmas lights, buy the tickets for the Christmas train ride. Have all the materials ready before Thanksgiving and then sit back and enjoy the season! Last year I gathered everything around Thanksgiving time and stored everything in a closet that the girls don't use. Then each day I knew I just had to pull out what I needed and we were good to go!

What are your top tips for enjoying the holidays? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments!

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Fermata Friday: November 20, 2015

Welcome to this week's installment of my weekly linky party, Fermata Fridays! This is a chance for music education bloggers to share blog posts with readers and bloggers alike, so we can all mingle and learn from each other. Readers, you are going to love all of the awesome blog posts that are out there- I hope you discover some new blogs to follow and get some new inspiration for your teaching! Bloggers, make sure you read the directions carefully before linking up to make sure we keep the party fun for everyone. Thanks! :)

Here are the rules for the linky party:

1. Add the linky image to your blog post, blog sidebar, linky party roundup, or other similar location on your blog and link it back to the party. Copy and paste the code for this button, or use the image above and link to the label "Fermata Fridays".

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://caldwellorganizedchaos.blogspot.com/search/label/Fermata%20Fridays"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD5AShYQiAk-NC2PM5EMpGrK31c3bfaUO7qbi6cCVXVIW-ySfO3xfYbJOj0WAbRcl11hVrCCWLIiqFjqs2cV8Yu8Zw-HEdtId-jZRpwv-W6p9VwBWQZvreaxjOfVBwlw-YdvMr_BbR3M0/s1600/fermata+friday+button.jpg" /></a></div><br />

2. Add up to two blog post links to the linky. The posts can be old or new (but no posts that have already been linked up to Fermata Fridays in the past), on any topic related to music teaching, but must not be primarily featuring a product. It's fine to have a link to a relevant product within a post, but that should not be the primary focus of the post. I reserve the right to delete a link that is too product-focused. If you're not sure, just ask! :)

3. Leave a thoughtful comment on at least two other links, including the one right before yours. Add #fermatafridays to your comment so bloggers know where you found them!

4. Pin at least one post to one of your Pinterest boards.

5. Make sure you are following me on Pinterest. I will be pinning every link to the Fermata Fridays board each week.

6. Make sure you are following me on Facebook and check back next Friday- I will be featuring one of the links from the previous week's linky on my Facebook page each Friday!

The linky will be open every Friday until 4:00am EST Saturday morning.

An InLinkz Link-up

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Teacher Tuesday: the phrase I want to stop using in my classroom

Last week one of my daughters came home from preschool repeating a phrase she had learned from her teacher. It is one that I use quite often in my own teaching, but when I heard it come out of my 3-year-old's mouth (with the R's sounding like W's and the cute, high-pitched tone), it gave me pause.

The phrase? "Worry about yourself".

I think it struck me most because just a few days before I heard my daughter say it, I had heard her teacher tell me at parent conferences that my daughter was very good at helping the other students, and even the teachers, when she sensed that they needed something or were not feeling well. Isn't it kindof backwards to tell children NOT to worry about anyone else, but rather to only worry about themselves? And yet we say it all the time.

We have very good reason for saying it. I usually use it when students are, in a rather haughty or accusatory tone, telling other students what to do (and thus creating more noise, chaos, and conflict). Because the original offenders are then getting offended by the other students telling them what to do, I tell all of the students to "stop worrying about what other people are doing and worry about yourself". We say it because we want them to mind their own business and let us, the teachers, handle any inappropriate behaviors (since we clearly know how to handle it more appropriately without hurting students' feelings and making a small problem into a bigger problem).

But what about teaching children how to help each other? How to correct and remind without offending? What about teaching children to be able to accept help when it is offered graciously instead of automatically getting defensive?

I think telling students to mind their own business- to worry about themselves- is the easy way out. That's why we say it so often. But when I really think about it, that's not what I really want my students to do. I want them to be able to help and accept help from each other. I want them to worry about each other in a healthy and empathic way.

I don't want my 3-year-old daughter to stop running across the room to get the tissue box when she sees another student has a booger hanging out of their nose. I don't want her to stop asking the teacher, in a concerned little voice, if she is tired. In fact, I want to teach all of my students to do exactly what she is doing right now- show concern and care for the other people in her classroom community.

Instead of telling everyone to worry about themselves, I want to start talking to my classes about how to help each other, when to ignore small things that come up, when to let an adult or someone else handle something, and how to accept help and reminders when they are offered. It will certainly take more time than telling everyone to mind their own business, but I think it will also help foster important character traits and develop a healthy and safe classroom community as well.

Do you use this phrase in your classroom? Have you ever thought about it? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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Mommy Monday: my favorite planner supplies

It's about that time of year when everyone starts thinking about calendars and planners for the new year. It's enough to make this planner girl squeal with excitement! I've been in love with my planner for several years now, but only started decorating it (somewhat) this school year. I've finally gotten to the point where I am happy with the way my planner looks and I enjoy my weekly planning times, so I thought I would share my favorite planner decorating supplies with you this week!

In this post I will be focusing on supplies for decorating your planner pages. If you want to see my favorite supplies for planner binding and setup, you can get started with this post on my planner setup for the 2015-16 school year.

So, on with the supplies!

As a single mom and full-time teacher I don't have the time or money, let alone space in my planner pages, for the full-out scrapbooking style planner decoration that I love to see on Instagram and YouTube. But I have found a happy medium that allows me to be creative and colorful without taking away from my time, budget, or planner page real estate. I've put my favorite supplies into five categories- first up is, of course, washi tape!

Washi tape is one of my favorite ways to decorate in my planner. I like to add some to the top and bottom edges of my planner, and I also make little flags to denote extended events and appointments. I know it looks like a lot of washi, but I am actually due for a little purging- some of it I stopped using months ago because it got tacky and difficult to use (considering I've had them for over 2 years that doesn't upset me too much). It is a fun and cheap way to add some color to my pages, though, and it's so easy to use!

My pens are another staple for my planning. I recently got the Frixion erasable ink pen in black, which I use for the bulk of the writing in my planner. It is so nice not to have to cross things out or pull out the white out every time plans change or I make a mistake! I use the sharpies to color my planner stickers (more on that in a second) and write on washi tape, and the colored Staedtler pens I use to mark the classes in my lesson planner, which I color-code by grade so I can quickly find each grade's lessons when I am looking in my planner.

Let's call this the slightly-miscellaneous category. I use the Avery all-purpose labels, which I color with the sharpies, to mark appointments, blog posts, and other events in my planner. After I color them, I use the small planner icon stamps from this Etsy shop to make my own, repositionable stickers! I also sometimes use the patterned stickers to mark important events. The glue stick is perfect for making my own page flags and stickers, because it is repositionable too! I use it to add sticky notes, scrapbook paper, and other things into my pages.

Speaking of sticky notes.... I keep a bunch of pages flags on my dashboard (see my tutorial for making your own dashboard here), and I keep larger sticky notes and notepad paper on the back of the dashboard too. These are great for marking things in my planner that I want to make more noticeable, or that I think the date might change. I also use the bigger notes for grocery lists and other reminders that I can pull out and take with me on errands.

I really resisted the cutesy, purely decorative stickers for a long time, but I have finally succumbed to the pressure. These sticker books are great because each book is $1, and you get a ton of coordinating stickers in each set. I've seen them at Staples, Michael's, and JoAnn Fabrics, and they come out with new sets every season. I like to give half to my daughters to use in their art projects and keep the other half for myself. If anyone asks, I bought them for the kids! ;)

If you want to see all of my supplies in action, I've uploaded my first "plan with me" video on YouTube last weekend. And if you want to see more of these, subscribe to my channel and you'll get an email when I add new videos (no promises, it is holiday season after all, but I will do my best)!

And that's it! Which ones are your favorites? Do you have other recommendations for supplies I should try? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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