favorite things swap

So, my friend Shannon posted about this and I checked it out. It sounds really fun. Essentially, you pick 3 of your favorite things to swap with someone else.


If you're interested, check it out here. Might as well join the fun!

What Do YOU Do With M&M's?

Here's what we did:

We used them to make patterns: A B A B, AA B AA B, AA B C AA B C and so on


We used them to make shapes...triangles, circles, rectangles, ovals, rhombuses, and hexagons.


We sorted them by color.

My plan was to use them for adding and subtracting, but the girls had other plans. A few other things we did were to use them to practice skip counting by 2's and
5's. We used them to make fractions (1/2 of these M & M's are blue and 1/2 are red OR are 1/2 of them green if there are 5 green and 3 red?)

Ella practiced counting with them.

You can also use M&M's (or skittles or cereal or blocks) to practice multiplication and division. Have the child make 3 groups of 6 to figure out 3 x6. Michelle practiced division without even knowing it. She would count out 10 M&M's. Then I would have her pretend she was sharing them evenly with 2 friends or five friends. Then she counted out 12 M &M's and shared them evenly with 3 friends. After that, the kids were ready to be done with the M & M's, so then the best part of the activity? They got to eat them!

What would you do with M &M's? Could they also be used to teach a science or reading principle? Any creative ideas out there?

It's What Fun Is!

Saturday June 13:

Alfredo's company had Lagoon Day. We got in for free and they even provided lunch: an all you can eat bbq, complete with tons of prizes for everyone. We left Gabrielle with my friend Brenda, because she is too little to go on any rides and I didn't want her in the sun all day. Turns out that wasn't a problem, since it has been raining almost daily for 2 1/2 weeks now...and the sun was nowhere to be seen that day. But I wouldn't want her in the rain and cold either. (And fortunately, it only rained hard for about 15 minutes and sprinkled off and on a few other times. So most of the day was actually pleasant.)

This was Michelle and Ella's first time going to Lagoon. They LOVED it! Michelle is still talking about it. Michelle definitely takes after her dad, and Ella is more like me. Michelle wanted to go on all the rides and was disappointed that she was too little for some of the scary ones. Ella was happy to spend most of the day in Kiddieland. She liked the ferris wheel and the sky ride just fine, but she hated the big boat and that was the extent of the adult rides she and I went on. So what did they like best? Michelle loved the dinosaur drop and the ladybug that shoot you in the air and then drop you. She also said that the swinging boat was scary, and yet not too bad. She really, really wanted to go in this little ball that shoots you way into the air, but she was about two inches too short.






Ella's favorite ride was the dragon roller coaster. She probably rode it six times while we were there. She also liked the airplane and space ship ones. The big boat (Tidal Wave) totally scared her. She cried and her heart was pounding like CRAZY. I'm sorry we took her on it.




These are our friend's Cameron and Braden. It was fun, because one of Alfredo's best friends (Leo) works at Utility so he and his family were there. In addition, Leo invited his brother Christian, sister in law Teresa and their kids Cameron and Braden. Ella rode several rides with Cameron and Braden.


Alfredo invited his cousin Patti, her husband Nelson and their kids Daya and Laly. Patti's mom and sister also came. This photo is Patti, Michelle, Ella, Daya and Laly walking together. For awhile, Michelle went with Patti, Daya and Laly to ride some of the grown up rides while Ella, Alfredo, and I stayed with Christian and his family. The positive thing about the downpour was that many people left Lagoon, so after the downpour there was hardly any wait to get on rides.

This was a fun day! I can hardly wait to do it again next year.

Saying Goodbye to Kindergarten

Monday,June 9 was Michelle's last day of kindergarten. They held an end of the year celebration. First, they had a singing program. They sang a couple of songs about feelings and getting along. Then the dual immersion classes sang "My Mother is a Baker" in Spanish (Mi mama es panadera...). Michelle was the abuela (grandma) in the song.

After the performance, the students were handed a certificate and their report cards. Then the students got their sack lunches and we had a picnic in two of the kindergarten classrooms.



I am so pleased with Michelle's growth this year. Both of her teachers were so happy with all that she learned. She is reading at a DRA level 6 and is above benchmark on all sections of the DIBELS. Her reading in English and Spanish has improved. She speaks Spanish much more often now and will respond in Spanish when people talk to her (most of the time). Before she could understand most of what people said but she would answer in English. She is a good friend and is kind to the other students. She has made many friends this year, with her closest friends being Liliana and Mia. She has learned how to add and subtract, she loves patterns and notices patterns everywhere. She has begun to learn about recognizing and counting money. She knows her letters and sounds, shapes, colors, numbers and months of the year and days of the week in both languages. She was given Spanish books to read over the summer as well as some math and reading workbooks in both languages and has happily done work in them nearly every day. She loves to write and fills pages and pages with writing. She loves school and has done so well.

This is Maestra Tiburcio, her Spanish teacher. Michelle loves Maestra Tiburcio. A few favorites: On your birthday, Maestra cracks an egg on your head and "'fetti" (confetti) comes out. Earlier in the year, Maestra constructed a huge castle out of cardboard boxes and they had a bunch of activities relating to castles and fairy tales that lasted a week or more. Maestra has a fun kitchen area that they get to use during center time. It has a sink and lots of food and is very fun. In Spanish, Michelle kept a journal throughout the year. It is so fun to see how her writing in Spanish improved. At first, she would only write a word or two, but by the end she was writing one to three sentences in Spanish independently (with a few spelling errors, but very close to conventional spelling).


This is Mrs. Pereira, her English teacher. In English, Michelle really enjoyed all the songs and poems they learned. (She also loved the Spanish songs and poems.) She loved calendar time. She loved making puppets. Mrs. Pereira taught her to count to 100 and to count by tens. She gave them little toys when they learned all their letters and sounds and learned to count to 100. Because the kitchen was so popular in Maestra Tiburcio's room, Mrs. Pereira bought a kitchen too. She was very nice.



This is Michelle in "Mi Mama is Panadera" dressed up as the abuela.





Some of the things I loved about Michelle's school:
They have a great music program. In kindergarten through second grade, they have a music teacher that teaches them many songs (Michelle's favorite is "blue bird, blue bird through my window", to recognize rhythm, to use their high and low singing voice, and to recognize and know about several classical composers. Then in third through sixth grade, every child learns to play violin. (At most schools, they don't start violin or band until 5th grade and don't have music instruction until second or third grade).

Michelle has the opportunity to become literate in English and Spanish.

The counselor comes in to teach Second Step which teaches about feelings, conflict resolution and violence prevention. She has learned a lot from Miss Maggie.

Jackson has a partnership with The University of Utah. College students volunteer in the dual immersion classes each week. The students in dual immersion attend a week long science camp at the U. Michelle's was called Ladybugs and Lily Pads. They learned about animals and did lots of fun activities including going to the Natural History Museum. In addition, they take 3 other field trips to the U. Michelle went to the library, saw dancers perform, had a story time, and did some other activities. From kinder on, they talk to the students about how important and valuable college is and let them know that they can go to college and how to prepare. I think this is especially great at a school like hers where many of the parents didn't go to college. Many of these kids will be the first to go to college if they go.

Jackson really focuses on positive behaviors. They have a student of the week from each class, a student of the month, end of term citizenship rewards and other recognition for good behavior.

I've decided I really do like the school uniform. It looks nice to see all these kids in their uniform. And they do have free choice on Fridays,if they earn it.

They have a great after school program.

Michelle thinks her school is the best one ever. (Although I'm confident she would be happy anywhere and I'm sure we would love Hunter if that is where she went.)
Michelle loves it there and that, in my mind, is the best reason to love Jackson.

Can you help?

My sister is running a marathon in Dublin for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. She is trying to fundraise $5,400 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. If you would like to read about what she is doing or donate, visit the website. I've put the link here. She ran another marathon for them and raised several thousand dollars. She is amazing! And this is for a great cause.
Welcome to My Fundraising Page!

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ten months

June 11, 2009
It's nearly impossible to believe but Gabrielle is now 10 months old. She continues to delight us with her smile (still only 2 teeth) and laugh. She is still such a sweet, content but now very active baby.


Cute story: One day, Gabrielle was standing up at the back screen door. Chester came over and was licking her hand through the screen door. I ran to grab my camera, because I thought it was the cutest, sweetest thing ever. Come closer with my camera and realize that somehow Gabrielle had found a Hershey's kiss which she had eaten (wrapper and all) and she had chocolate on her hands and face. Chester wasn't being sweet (although he is a sweet dog and Gabrielle does love him)... HE was trying to lick the chocolate off her!!!



Let's see... as I mentioned in my last post, she is climbing up stairs, standing alone, cruising and crawling. She'll walk if she's holding onto you but not quite ready to take steps independently (which is okay by me...).

She also says, "mama", "dada", "Uh-oh" and what sounds like "Ella". She waves, and claps and plays peekaboo. In fact, she LOVES peekaboo. She especially likes it if either you hide on the stairs and pop up (over and over and over....) or if she uses a table or the bench in church to pop up over and over to play with you.

Oh, and I mustn't forget. She loves to dance. I mean she loves to dance. IT is so cute. If you sing or put music on, she bounces up and down and moves her little body all around and swivels her head. I wish I had a video to post on here because it is the cutest thing ever. And she has rhythm. She is a doll, and we are so blessed to have her in our family.

Catching up...

So I have not had computer access lately, and I have lots of blogging to catch up on.
In the next couple of days, I will probably do a series of posts to relate our busy, fun events as of late.

First, Gabrielle has learned to climb the stairs. Literally, she taught herself in about 5 minutes. I left her downstairs alone and ran outside for a few minutes to tell Alfredo something. When I came back in, she was almost up the stairs. She is quite good at going up but still needs lots of help going down, so we're still really careful around stairs.





She is also standing and cruising and crawling.