Another One

Not too long ago, Ryan lost his first front tooth. Now, he lost his second front tooth. This is a good sign because we don't need to have a dentist to pull it out before June (we were warned if his front teeth didn't come out. This saves us some bucks.)

He was so proud to earn another dollar, so he would be able to purchase more Plush Club Penguin stuff.

Ceiling Cat

This is what we found when we came home.

Children's Museum

Right after we went out for a morning hiking, I took the boys to The New Children Museum in downtown San Diego. I would give a thumb-up if my kids were younger than they are at right now. They did not mind for an hour and a half because it was relatively new, and was their first time.

Dylan pretended that he is one of the Ninjas.

Ryan did pretty good on making a picture out of colorful tapes.

Ryan was gallant enough to try out for rock climbing while Dylan was afraid of height.

Dylan was trying to make the world largest bubble.

Last before we left for home, I thought this was one of the amazing balloon creatures.

What does it look like to you?

This is the first and probably last time I would take my boys to The New Children Museum. They are getting too old to attend this event. I am planning on taking them out to variety place around San Diego over our two week of a Spring Break.

Hiking

On our first day of a Spring Break, the boys and I decided to go out for a hiking in our home area. It was a beautiful day! We started off at 9 A.M to spend more extra activities throughout the day.

Boys were hiking on their way to a neighbor park.

Dylan and Ryan posed for the picture on a bridge.

Dylan volunteered to take a close-up picture of me.

Ryan did pretty much on his own swinging up and down independently.

Dylan enjoyed doing the swirl swinging. Not me! It would make me dizzy!

Since they did not complain going out for a hiking, I decided to take them to a New Children Museum in Downtown San Diego on their first day of a Spring Break.

A Night Before St. Patrick's

I read a story, A Night Before St. Patrick's to students overhead. While I was reading a book, I demonstrated and asked questions.

After the questions, I splited into two writing groups. Each group have their own writing essay.

Lower Level: What kind of cool places could you go, if you were that small?

Higher Level: If you were a Leprechaun, where would you hide your pot of gold?



Once they already started writing a first draft, they will do it as for a homework. NO EXCUSE! Because tomorrow is a Lucky Day for not having a homework. Pretty much of today, students created Leprechaun's trap hats, rainbow mobile, and bead rings with gold coins around their desk.

They all were excited and hoped that they catch Leprechaun in their Leprechaun's hat. My aide and I instead turned our classroom upside down. I get lots of "Oh My God!" responses from the staff. This would be interesting how the students react when they see in the morning. Instead of teaching of writing lesson (that's why I gave them a day before essay homework,) they will be cleaning the mess up for me!

Freckles

Each day, I have watched my two sons, Dylan and Ryan getting their freckles. Clearly, they got it from their dad because he has a fair skin. But Ryan has olive skin. He does have few freckles, so it means, he has mixtures of fair and olive skins. This link shows how kids get freckles.


But I always tease my kids that they got freckles from getting lots of kisses from me. They giggled a lot when I told them about the kissing stuff. But good news is that their freckles will fade it away when they get older. It happened to David when he got older.

Bulletin Boards: Habitats

Over the past two months, I have been working on six different part of Habitats around the world with the students from first through fourth grade. None of them had any science experience, but they all love what they had learned through by LOTS of visual aids, activities, and games on Smart Board.

I started out with the Desert. It helped them to understand of where that's close to our region.

I even included the desert plants without thorns. Many of them were awing on the plants because many of them never saw any different kinds of cactus.

After we finished our Rain forest, we invited one of the deaf guests to do the Story telling on: The Great Kapok book. (click the book) It was an excellent book for the students to understand how important to preserve the environment.

This is a close-up Pond picture. While I was teaching Pond, I even taught about their life cycle (click on Life Cycle ) on the Smart Board. While working on between Pond and Ocean, I had to explain the students between Fresh and Salt Water. I had two bowls of Fresh and Salt Water sitting outside in the sun for three days, so they could see the difference when the fresh water lose the water from the sun.

While I was working on Ocean, I had some Art Activities with the colorful sponge and writing about the animals.
After the Ocean, we started discussing about the Grassland. They were shocked that there were different types of Grassland, especially green and yellow grass after I read and show a book about the life in Grassland. The next day, one of my students brought over the dry grassland.


The last part of the region is teaching Tundra. I had to explain the different animals living in Arctic and Antarctica . I even gave each student a cup of ice cube and water to see how the ice stay or float up. It gave them a better picture about the glaciers. The best part is that they never knew these two places: Arctic and Antarctica have Spring and Summer. They kept saying, "What!" Now, they know there are small areas that grow flowers and green grass during these two seasons.

Overall of my Habitat lesson plans, I felt really good that each level had learned. They all loved the lessons. This will give them a life time educational experience.