Wow! If you weren’t at this month’s MOPS meeting, you really missed out! We had such a great time mixing things up, starting with our discussion groups, which were focused around specific moments in the life of a mom. It wasn’t surprising that the most popular table happened to be, “Moms Dealing with Attitude Issues!” I bet the discussion at that table was great!

Our speakers were so enthusiastic about Playing with Purpose, the theme of the evening. During their presentations, I thought about a quote I recently heard: “A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.”

Jenny Phillips shared creative ways to take the interests and imagination of your child and mold them into fun, but teachable moments. She suggested that before we say those dreaded words: “No, not right now,” to the bright eyed toddlers standing at our feet requesting another round of dress up or doctor, that we look at life with their perspective and utter these silent words in our minds “Why not?” Jenny encouraged us to think of how to expand moments, how to make them full of learning, laughter and love and mostly, how to cherish them! Childhood comes only once and if we open our hearts and our minds to the possibilities, we can create some priceless moments that our children will remember for many years to come. After all, who in Jenny’s home will ever forget the cat’s birthday party, the drive in movie in the back of their van parked right in the drive way or the drumming of pots and pans from her little boy? How exciting that in the midst of fun, they were all achieving developmental milestones!

Next, Jennifer Penoyer approached the same theme of playing with purpose from an educational perspective, focusing on fine motor skills. As a preschool teacher, she shared the importance of practicing basic competencies like cutting with scissors, holding crayons and pencils correctly and even the dreaded buttoning and snapping of clothes! Jennifer provided some awesome handouts (see the bottom of the post) with fine motor development skills broken down from 0-3 months all the way to 6 years of age. She encouraged all moms to monitor the progress of their children, to provide age appropriate challenging activities and to seek help if they are concerned their child is falling behind. Some simple ideas to promote fine motor skills in the midst of play are through the use of playdoh, lacing beads, using 2 inch pieces of sidewalk chalk and even commercial games and toys like pick up sticks and pegboards.

We ended the meeting by collecting Operation Christmas Child boxes and followed by some fun discussion time with our new “table group” friends. We are already looking forward to what’s ahead for December!

In case you missed out, click the links below to access:

The November Newsletter

Fine Motor Skills Handouts

Important Dates to Remember:

November 11^th- Toddler Time 10am-Noon FBCTT Gym

November 13^th- Mom’s Night Out 7pm-?? Panera Bread on Bruce B. Downs

November 20^th- Toddler Time 10am-Noon FBCTT Gym

December 4^th- Toddler Time 10am-Noon FBCTT Gym

Don’t forget, we’re still looking for lots of moms to contribute to the blog, by posting comments below and to the newsletter by offering recipes, testimonials, great books and other fun preschool ideas to newsletter@fbcttmops.org!

If you need some help starting out your first comment, then try answering just one of these questions:

What was your favorite part of the November MOPS meeting?

How are you making changes to have intentional playtime with your children?

What age appropriate fine motor skill are you going to start working on with your child? How?< ><–>

What a great meeting we had this October! We focused on saving during the adventure: saving lives, money and time!

We celebrated lots of birthdays as a kick off for the evening’s events. With an awesome instructional time from Mrs. Robinson, we learned the highlights of CPR and other safety related issues. We saw a fun demonstration by Kim for a creative twist on decorating pumpkins for the Fall and were intrigued by Cherie Miller’s plan for a “stay-cation.” Renee taught us a little bit about her fantastic savings using the websites below and encouraged us all to give it a try!

www.hotcouponworld.com

www.couponmom.com

www.moneysavingmom.com

At the conclusion of the meeting Kathryn shared that FBCTT Mops will be participating in Operation Christmas Child this year, as one of our service projects. Lists of suggested gift items and instructions can be found by reading more about this project here. Completed shoe boxes will be collected at the November meeting.

October is also full of awesome opportunities to get involved and meet other moms including Toddler Times in the FBCTT Gym, a Mother’s Night out at Lynn McNeals, and the FBCTT Fall Festival. Be sure to check out the October calendar of events here.

To catch up on other news, you can view the October newsletter as well.

We’re looking forward to this exciting month and of course, to seeing you in November!