Ep #27: Using Mommy & Me Preschool: A Parent’s Experience

But Rachelle is not a teacher and she didn’t really know exactly what Luna was supposed to be learning at three years old, four years old, didn’t want to miss anything. And just wasn’t really sure what to do and was having a hard time keeping Luna engaged and interested in learning. And was just kind of trying to mash up things together. And so she found our Mommy and Me Preschool program and it changed everything for them.

She’s going to tell you a little bit about that story. And then how when Luna went back to school and was in kindergarten and now in first grade, how she actually is helping her teacher bring play back into the classroom. It’s such a fun, funny story as she is kind of bringing all of the stuff she learned in Mommy and Me Preschool now into the public school system. And has the confidence to do that as well as how her teacher has noticed so many strengths that Luna has that she gained from doing this program with her mom.

And then Rachelle is also talking about how it helped the relationship with each other and how some of Luna’s best memories that she has in her childhood are doing Mommy and Me Preschool activities with her mom. And how she still talks about back when she was three and asked to do some of those activities again. Come listen to Luna’s story coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Hi, Rachelle, it’s so nice to have you on the podcast today.

Rachelle: Hi, how are you?

Amy: I am so good. I am so excited to talk to you because you have been a part of our community for years and post so many cute pictures and videos of some of the things you’ve done. And I’m so excited to get to kind of chat with you about your experience using Mommy and Me Preschool.

Rachelle: Yeah. My daughter really loves it. My daughter is still using it up until now and she’s already Grade one, and use some of the activities, we still incorporate it up until now, yeah.

Amy: That is so cool. I love to hear that. Okay, so tell me, when did you start, how old was your daughter when you started using it with her?

Rachelle: I think she was turning three when I started using it. So I first saw it almost the start of the lockdown and I was looking for something because she was in preschool and she had to stay home. And I was looking for something that will help me teach her better because I’m not a teacher myself. My only experience of teaching was through my younger brothers. But I wanted it to be fun for her. I wanted it to be play based. And I saw your ads in Facebook and stuff and I thought, maybe I’ll give it a try. And we ended up enjoying it and I ended up learning from it too, yeah.

Amy: That’s so cool.

Rachelle: And up until now, Luna keeps telling her teachers, “This is how my mommy teaches. You know what, this one is easier, this is the easier way to teach.” She tells her classmate, “We can use toys like this. We can use these toys to learn math.” So throughout the lockdown when we were forced to do online learning because her teacher back then, they weren’t really used to doing it online. And so the idea of being able to incorporate what she learned from Planning Playtime to her online schooling, she was able to show her teachers and friends that, “Hey, we can use stuff.

Instead of us doing workbooks all day, worksheets all day, writing, we can just use our toys. We’re just kindergarten, we can do that at home too.” Things we have, it doesn’t have to be toys, if we don’t have toys we can use stuff from the kitchen. So they started enjoying kindergarten online because of that. Amy: Oh my gosh, I love it. So she started bringing some of what she was using in Planning Playtime to her kindergarten class. I love it.

Rachelle: Her teacher was concerned, maybe some children don’t have toys. And she was encouraging them, “You know what, if they don’t have toys, we can use stuff we have at home like paperclips or things from a kitchen.” And it changed the whole dynamic of her kindergarten. Everyone was involved and everyone was learning, everyone was happy.

Amy: I love that so much. Okay, so when the lockdown was starting and you were wanting to do stuff with her at home and you weren’t a teacher and weren’t sure what to do and then this kind of gave you, Mommy and Me Preschool program gave you kind of an outline to work with?

Rachelle: Yes, it gave me an outline to work with which eventually, she remembered what we did and she suggested it. When she went to kindergarten afterwards, a year after, she remembered what we did. And then they started doing it in school.

Amy: Did you feel like she was prepared?

Rachelle: [Crosstalk] I school, I mean, yeah, she was very prepared. Her teacher was so happy and they’re always inspired by what we do and what she does. They started learning about numbers. And the first time they were learning they were just writing. They were writing, writing, writing but she started telling the teacher, “You know what, teacher, can we start bringing our toys in or something and we can learn math in that, it will be more fun. So my classmates won’t fall asleep.”

Amy: I love it. That’s so great. Play is interesting because it engages different parts of the brain and engages the brain at all and so of course they are more interested in what they’re doing. But it also is more impactful and building connections and synapses in their brain. And so it’s so neat to see that. And I love that she’s taking it with her into the public school system and encouraging that for her classmates as well, that’s amazing. Do you feel like doing Mommy and Me Preschool changed or helped your relationship with your daughter, between you and your daughter at all?

Rachelle: Yes, definitely, because we got to bond because we were just playing. And then she doesn’t feel like she is forced into doing something. So every day she looks forward to, “What did mommy prepare for me today? Oh my gosh, every day some kind of experiment. Are we doing science today? Are we doing sensory play?” She doesn’t know we’re learning. She doesn’t feel like, she just thinks it’s playtime with mommy. The first time I was teaching her, I was based on workbooks because I didn’t know where to start. So I was doing workbooks and stuff.

It felt like it wasn’t working for us because she’s the kind of girl who likes things to be hands on. She’s a visual learner. I learned from you guys that back then she was hesitant about writing. And in order for her to learn to be able to enjoy it is through exercises to strengthen her hands. I didn’t know that. I learned through those activities you were suggesting all the time so yeah.

Amy: To get her fine motor skills, yeah, that’s why fine motor skills are so important. And I don’t think we always knew about that but yeah, we incorporate that a lot into our lessons.

Rachelle: Yeah. I realized she was just getting tired because her hands weren’t that, and she needed more hand exercise. And so she enjoyed it after we did more sensory play, we did more science experiments, we did a lot of those. And every time she comes home to me, “You know mom, my hands are stronger now. Did you see my handwriting? It’s even better now.” Her teacher is even saying how some of your activities involve cutting or most of them are actually strengthening the hands. So now her teacher is commending how good her hand strength is for her age.

Amy: That is so exciting to hear. I want to hear about your experience too as a parent because sometimes, especially if we’re not teachers, a trained teacher, it feels a little intimidating to try to teach at home. And so I wonder, for you did you feel like it was easy to use and did it take a lot of time to prepare every day or did you feel like it was fairly simple to kind of know what to do and know how to teach your child?

Rachelle: It was definitely simple for me because you had laid out the program already. So all I have to make sure is I have the materials and if I don’t have it, I have a substitute anyway. And you always lay out the plan so I can see what we have to do throughout the week, yeah. And even if let’s just say we have a day off and we don’t get to do it we just do it another day. That’s the beauty of it, you get to do it at your own pace.

Amy: Yes. It’s very flexible, yes. I love it so much. So what would you say if there was another mom that was wondering about this program and wondering if it would be a right fit for them or if it would be something that would help their child, what would you say to another mom who’s considering buying the Mommy and Me Preschool program?

Rachelle: I always say you should give it a try because it’s very convenient and it’s very easy that everything is planned out for you. You will see what you have to work on whereas before I used to do it all jumbled up and I was confused. I was doing numbers and I was doing this, it was all jumbled up and she won’t remember it. Now, when you have something planned out for you, you get to see what you’ll have to work with, with her.

And yeah, I always tell other moms in general that Mommy and Me Preschool helped me and it will be a great convenience for them because you don’t have to print anything. You just use what you have at home. Sometimes they’ll get intimidated because there are programs where you have to print something, you have to do this. And no, they make it to a point where it’s budget friendly, you just look through it every week and start there learning every day. You don’t really have to do much. It’s no prep. I always say give it a try because it doesn’t really cost much and you get to bond with your kids.

Amy: And they get to go to school and be so well prepared and strong hands.

Rachelle: Yeah, they do. Her teacher was so happy of how well prepared we are, how well prepared she is. How she enjoys learning, [inaudible] gives her the confidence to listen and learn more. When she’s at school she’s more attentive because she has an idea of what they’re learning. She can even work towards being better every day because of the program.

Amy: I love to hear that. That makes me so happy. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience with us today. I so appreciate it. I’m so glad that you’ve loved using the program with your cute little girl and that she’s doing so well in school, that makes me so happy to hear.

Rachelle: Well, thank you so much for making this program for us, make it easier for us. Up until now we still reminisce about all the activities we do as she keeps asking me, “Mom, can we do this again. You know when I was three, we used to do this. We used to play this. Can we do it again?” Yeah, we’ll incorporate it into your Grade 1 learning, yeah, we can do that. She loves that up until now she never forgot about it.

Amy: That is so neat that you’ve built those shared memories together around learning because it builds that passion in with the learning which is so important, and you’re modeling that learning can be fun. And then I love again, as you said, she’s carrying that into her schooling and bringing the fun with her and bringing her class along with her and bringing joy and fun and play back to learning which is so fantastic. It’s amazing and very empowering I think for a small child.

Rachelle: Definitely, it really is, up until now. I’m just so happy of how it turned out because we did kindergarten, her whole kindergarten online learning but she didn’t feel like she missed out on anything.

Amy: I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. It’s been so fun talking with you today.

Rachelle: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Amy: Of course.

How fun was it to learn a little bit about Luna. And do you not love that she is going into the classroom and talking to her teacher and bringing what she’s learned in Mommy and Me Preschool to her classmates and her teacher and making learning more fun for everyone. I love the confidence. I love the power and that she’s changing the world as a five/six year old. That’s amazing.

If you would like to learn more about the Mommy and Me Preschool program so that you can also work with your child at home, even if you’re not a teacher, even if you’ve never done this before and you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to teach and you don’t want to miss anything and all of those things, we have got you covered. We have a plan and it is so easy as Rachelle said. And you just have the outline for yourself and you can pull up and do whatever you can do that day. And if you miss a day it’s going to be okay, you can make it up later or you can just move on.

You can find our program at mommyandmepreschool.com. Again that is mommyandmepreschool.com. You’ll see additional reviews from the over 13,000 moms that have done this program with us and are seeing results for their children all over the world. We can’t wait to have you be one of the parents and children in our preschool program. Come find us at mommyandmepreschool.com today.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here. And you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie.

So what this freebie is I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos. And it is based in play and is so fun. You can use dot markets with it. You can use Q-Tip painting. You could use circle cereals. There’s all kinds of options, but you can print it out today and get started. Just head over to planningplaytime.com\special-freebie and we’ll send that to you right away.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website, planningplaytime.com. See you next week.