Hi there! My name is Kayla and I am a former elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home mom living in Texas. In 2014, I landed my first teaching job as a kindergarten teacher. I then went on to teach 3rd grade for two years and then second for two years before leaving the profession to stay at home with my son. The last 3 years of my teaching journey were spent teaching only math and science.
I started my Teachers Pay Teachers store in early 2018 after losing my passion for teaching. I started thinking about how to get that passion back and decided to start creating what I thought was missing in my classroom. It worked! I created resources to make math instruction more fun, both for me and my students, while still being rigorous. I got my love for teaching back and decided to start sharing my resources with other teachers, too. That’s when The Average Teacher was born.
In May of 2019, I said goodbye to classroom teaching as I awaited the arrival of my son a month later. However, I still wanted to be able to help teachers make math more fun for their students, so I continued creating resources to share. This became my full time job for almost two years, until…
In the spring of 2021 I found out I was pregnant again…with TRIPLETS. That was definitely not expected! The next several months were a whirlwind. I was dealing with a lot of morning sickness, while also having to care for a toddler full time. We sold our house and (temporarily) moved in with my parents. We found out we lost one of our 3 babies. And then right when life was starting to settle down again, the twins were born in November of 2021. All of a sudden I had 3 children under 3, including 2 newborns. As you can imagine, my business went on the back burner during this time.
As life started settling down again the next year, we bought a house and moved again. Finally, in the fall of 2022, I decided to get back into the business and start creating again. But, it no longer felt right to continue creating resources for grades I haven’t taught in a few years (and, of course, that was pre-COVID, and I knew teaching was different now). Plus, I didn’t want to be taking time away from my kids to create resources I wouldn’t personally be using, at least not in the near future. That’s when I decided to shift my focus to instead creating resources FOR my kids – things we could use in the early years at home, and eventually, homeschool resources as we plan to homeschool (at least for elementary school).
Now I’ve rebranded as just myself – Kayla Bernardez – though I also call myself “The Homemade SAHM.” I felt like this title accurately described my life and my passions – I’m a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM), and I love homemaking and DIYing everything, including the educational resources my children use in our home. Someday I hope to also be able to teach other parents how they can create their own resources, too!
I’m so glad you’re here and joining me on this new journey. Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or just someone who’s planning ahead for the future, I hope you find something here for you! Right now my kids are young, so my newest resources and blog posts are focused on early childhood learning (though you can still find all my 2nd & 3rd grade resources and blog posts here, too!). As they get older I will expand into other areas – my hope is that my little store will grow right alongside them.
I’d love to connect with you! I share tons of free ideas for littles over on my Instagram page. I’m currently in the middle of my rebrand, so I hope to have more to share with you in the future, but for now, enjoy browsing around and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or ideas! All my updated contact info can be found over on my contact page. I’d love to hear from you!
