I just signed up for a digital scrapbooking class that is free for a limited time. Check out www.jessicasprague.com My sister in law has taken her classes and liked them. She has some really neat stuff on her pages.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Little Decorator in the Making!
Tornados in Kansas... What is a girl to do? Wednesday we had sporadic tornado warnings so there were no outside activities all day. That's just torture for Miss Madelynn! Last summer I took Wilton Course 1 cake decorating class and my sisters and I are planning on taking the rest of them this summer so I thought I would brush up my cake decorating skills. Madelynn, being 2 going on 16 as she is, decided that playdough with the cookie cutters is for babies if Mommy is going to bake a real cake so instead of practicing my decorating skills, I ended up trying to simplify it for my almost 3 year old. It was interesting. As you can see, she picked the colors and the pattern. She surprised me at how well she did holding the bag. I think we only had hot pink frosting plopping out the back of the bag 1/2 dozen times or so and for a kid that age, I'd say that's not bad. Her biggest downfall was that she wanted to suck down all the frosting until I thought she was going to barf neon. She kept asking "Can I lick it now Mommy? How about now? Are we done yet so I can lick it? Can I help you lick it? MMMMM I like the frosting so much!" (In her 100 words a minute speech pattern.) The whole time Trenton was in the other room. He could not have cared less that we were having a sugar fest in the kitchen. I've never seen a kid less motivated or interested in candy - frosting - cake or anything else kids go nuts over. I'm thankful, but sometimes I think it would be easier if he were motivated by a piece of candy.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Catching up...
So, I started this blog a year ago and have failed to keep up. This time, I'm going to try harder! This started as a blog about our therapy dog and now I'm going to broaden the topics. First, though, I'll update you on the dog. Neville is amazing! He went to school with me everyday last year and won the hearts of the staff and students. Students practiced reading to Neville almost everyday. I did an informal action research project to see if reading to Neville actually helped increase reading fluency and my results showed that my students with disabilities did increase the same words per minute throughout the year as students without disabilities. Ideally, I would have measured wpm of students who had been allowed time to read to Neville vs. students who did not regularly read to him, but the numbers and qualifying factors I used did not allow for that. I will try it again in the future to see if I get similar results. Pretty good initial results, though! Check out the video on the tab to the right that NBC Nightly News aired about using dogs to teach reading.
How does Neville help Trenton? Originally, we got Neville to track down Trenton when he ran off. While he does do this, we have noticed that Trenton does not run away as often as he did when we didn't have him. We can tell when he gets tired, he is ornery and doesn't listen to us. We hand him Neville's leash and tell him to make Neville walk by us- and for some reason being in charge of someone else- I guess it's actually having responsibility- makes him follow directions much better! He helps with speech because we can teach him all kinds of silly tricks and Trenton has to give him the command. I can facilitate the speech command to have a certain kind of speech pattern that he is working on (like consonant vowel consonant sounds). The final consonant sound is something Trenton struggles with. One trick we do is give Neville an ice cube. Trenton has to say "ICE" before he gives him the ice. the /s/ sound can be tricky - especially starting/ stopping appropriately, so that's one way to practice. Neville is such a quick learner- the kindergartners taught him how to make snow angels on command last winter.
Neville is also calming for Trenton. He isn't too sensitive to schedule changes, but sometimes he gets upset when things don't go the way he thinks they need to go. He will scream and pout, but Neville will go sit by him and they cuddle together which calms him down. It's so cute when they nap together!
The kids? Madelynn is 2 going on 16, I think. She is talking non-stop. The other day we were eating dinner and she looks at my husband and says "Dad, I'm gonna need some money." Knowing her, he just shook his head and said "I kinda figured you would..." I don't know if she has self esteem issues or what but she is constantly asking me "Mommy, do you love me?" I tell her I do at least 50 times a day, so I don't' know why she questions it!
Me? Right now I'm enjoying summer break and watching my 6 month old nephew twice a week. 3 kids keeps me really busy! We are trying to go swimming as often as we can but the weather isn't allowing it! Twice this week it has stormed when we've tried to go to the pool. I built a trampoline in our backyard this afternoon which was great fun! I did not anticipate how hard it was going to be to pull those springs to fit the frame! Then I felt like an idiot when our 90 year old neighbor came over and made it fit. I work out 5 days a week, and he's stronger than me? I think there's a problem!
How does Neville help Trenton? Originally, we got Neville to track down Trenton when he ran off. While he does do this, we have noticed that Trenton does not run away as often as he did when we didn't have him. We can tell when he gets tired, he is ornery and doesn't listen to us. We hand him Neville's leash and tell him to make Neville walk by us- and for some reason being in charge of someone else- I guess it's actually having responsibility- makes him follow directions much better! He helps with speech because we can teach him all kinds of silly tricks and Trenton has to give him the command. I can facilitate the speech command to have a certain kind of speech pattern that he is working on (like consonant vowel consonant sounds). The final consonant sound is something Trenton struggles with. One trick we do is give Neville an ice cube. Trenton has to say "ICE" before he gives him the ice. the /s/ sound can be tricky - especially starting/ stopping appropriately, so that's one way to practice. Neville is such a quick learner- the kindergartners taught him how to make snow angels on command last winter.
Neville is also calming for Trenton. He isn't too sensitive to schedule changes, but sometimes he gets upset when things don't go the way he thinks they need to go. He will scream and pout, but Neville will go sit by him and they cuddle together which calms him down. It's so cute when they nap together!
The kids? Madelynn is 2 going on 16, I think. She is talking non-stop. The other day we were eating dinner and she looks at my husband and says "Dad, I'm gonna need some money." Knowing her, he just shook his head and said "I kinda figured you would..." I don't know if she has self esteem issues or what but she is constantly asking me "Mommy, do you love me?" I tell her I do at least 50 times a day, so I don't' know why she questions it!
Me? Right now I'm enjoying summer break and watching my 6 month old nephew twice a week. 3 kids keeps me really busy! We are trying to go swimming as often as we can but the weather isn't allowing it! Twice this week it has stormed when we've tried to go to the pool. I built a trampoline in our backyard this afternoon which was great fun! I did not anticipate how hard it was going to be to pull those springs to fit the frame! Then I felt like an idiot when our 90 year old neighbor came over and made it fit. I work out 5 days a week, and he's stronger than me? I think there's a problem!
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