Walk Down Memory Lane

For the past several months, my brother Aaron has been working on a HUGE project in his spare time. He has been scanning our old slides and transferring them onto CD's for us. I am having so much fun going over the old slides and remembering the past. I am going to try and transfer all of the files on CD over to FLICKR so that I can have back up, online copy of the pictures.

Thank you Aaron!

Feliz Cumpleaños

It is also my friend Laurie's birthday. She doesn't not have a video available so I will link to a clip from something she loves...musicals!

¡Me Encanta Esta Novela!

The more I watch this show, the more I like it. Here is a video clip of the song and the show.

Note: potentially NSFW!

A GREAT conference

Yesterday a parent came in to talk to me after school. He is actually a guardian (uncle) for my student from Oaxaca. It was hands down the best conference I have ever had with a guardian/parent.

The uncle came in and asked me excellent questions about the progress of his niece as well as suggestions for how he and his wife could help her out at home. He apologized many times and told me that he didn't have a good education and he wanted to make sure that his niece had the best possible opportunities in life.

I was so impressed by his questions and his commitment to his niece. She will certainly go far with someone as dedicated as her uncle to help her along the way.

I felt so wonderful for this little girl after our meeting. (very hopeful) I don't usually get to end the day on quite so great of a moment. That meeting made the rest of my afternoon and evening. I wish I (and my students) could have more of those days.

Too Many Choices

My new car rocks in the listening department. It has a great sound system and makes anything I listen to sound better. In my new car, I have the choice of listening to the radio and CD's BUT I also have the awesome ability to listen to XM radio as well as plugging in my iPod directly to the sound system. WOW! I have been on an audio overload these past few days just trying to figure out what I want to listen to.

XM is so very cool. In addition to being able to listen to Air America, BBC News and CNN in the car, I have also enjoyed the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's channels, the Showtunes and Soundtrack channels, the musica latina channels as well as the E! True Hollywood stories channel. (shh...don't tell anyone about that last one.) I should also add that Sabina absolutely loves the Radio Disney channel for kids.

My biggest problem now is that I don't want to leave the car because I am enjoying what I am listening to so much!

Maya Angelou and the Power of Words

Thank You Fightin' Mad Chicano Liberal for bringing this link to my attention.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2685404n

Ok...I Can't Hold it in Any Longer!

Yesterday my brother came by the house and said "Let's go get you a new car." I just smiled at him and told him that I wasn't ready yet. I have been thinking about getting a new car but I still had to clean my old car out and get some brake work done. He just said to clean it out and take it to the car wash and go!

While I was busy getting the car ready Ruben called all over the Central Valley and Bay Area and even L.A. to see where he could get the best price on the car. Let me just say that my brother is SO very skilled in this area. He was using both the house phone and his cell phone sometimes both at the same time! He found the best price at a dealership in Tracy so we headed over there to check it out. The time at the dealership was so hassle free. We were in and out of the place in 2 hours. 1/3rd of that time was spent just waiting for the car to be gassed up and detailed. The price quoted to my brother was the same price that was offered when we showed up. I also got a lot of money for my trade in Corolla. WAY more than I ever thought I would get. With my trade in and my down payment, my monthly payments are under $250 a month- yippee!

Sabi likes the car too. Check out her post about the car here.

So...what car did I get??? Here it is people:

My 2007 Honda Element 2WD EX

I HAVE A SURPRISE!

Check back soon and I will tell you what it is!
:-)

Because I Have Nothing Better to Post

I found the link to this over at cracked Chancla's blog. I don't know about the dicatator bit, the color gray or the perfectionist bit. I have to admit that I do like control and check marks! *********** Your Birthdate: July 13

You're dominant and powerful. You always need to be in charge. While others respect your competence, you can be a bit of a dictator. Hard working and serious, you never let yourself down. You are exact and accurate - and you expect others to be the same way. Your strength: You always get the job done Your weakness: You're a perfectionist to a fault Your power color: Gray Your power symbol: Checkmark Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

FREE Books for kids!

I found this info over on Literanista's site. Thanks for the heads up! :-)

*******

Attention Kids and Parents!

You have just entered the Indiana Pacers' Locker Room Library, where you can receive a free book! The goal of Locker Room Library is to provide children the opportunity to establish their own home libraries and to embrace the love of reading.

Here's how it works:

1. Select Your Book
Check out the hundreds of books available at Locker Room Library and select your top three favorites (quantities of some titles are limited and therefore subject to availability).

2. Complete Request Form
Once you select your favorites, simply click on this link and print out the form. Make sure to complete the form in its entirety and let us know your top three favorite books available at our library.

3. Return Request Form
After completing the Request Form, mail it to:
Indiana Pacers
Locker Room Library
125 S. Pennsylvania Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Your free book will be mailed to you within 4-6 weeks of receiving your Request Form. Remember, you will only receive one book per Request Form, but you can submit as many Request Forms as you want!

We hope you enjoy your visit to the Pacers' Locker Room Library and return often!

Locker Room Library is part of the Pacers Read to Achieve program presented by Chase.

**********
Sabina and I will try it out. Looks good...

Flowers from the garden

Flowers from the garden
Originally uploaded by msabcmom.

Happy Spring!

Multiplication Madness

We are in multiplication hell around here.

Sabi does very well academically in all subjects. The one area she needs some extra assistance in though is in memorization of her multiplication tables. Sabina can multiply correctly when given time but she doesn't know her facts to automaticity. She knows how to get to the answer though. She will either just keep adding to find the answer or she will do little "what if" math scenarios to figure it out. Take 8 x 3 for example. Instead of simply memorizing the answer, 24, she says "Ok, if 4 x 3 is 12 and 4 is half of 8 then 12 doubled is 24." Man! That is just too much work! Thank goodness for the fact that she talks her problems out, out loud so I can peek into that brain of hers to help her out.

I have been trying to impress upon Sabina that memorization of the multiplication facts is SO much simpler and quicker. I bought some flash cards for us to practice with around the house and in the car. This has only brought tears to our lives. Each time Sabina gets one wrong, or doesn't say it in 10 seconds, the tears flow. It didn't matter to her that she had 146 right out of 169. She wanted to get them all right. This brings up another little problem. Sabina wants to have perfection but she really doesn't want to put the effort into it.

What to do??? Any great ideas?

Yesterday

Yesterday was a LONG day. We started out at 2 am by taking my mom to the airport. She is on her Spring Break and headed for Panamá! We arrived back home at 5:30 am and slept for about 2 hours. We then got ready and headed out the door, back to the Bay Area to make a trip to IKEA. WOW! I love that store. We were there for about 2-3 hours. I bought WAY too much stuff. We headed back home around 1:30 or so. It took us about 3 and a half hours to come back though due to VERY HEAVY traffic. It was nuts!

We were home at about 4:00 and we crashed for about 2 hours and then we started washing linens and working on our bedrooms. I told Sabi that if we can clean our rooms and fold all of the clothes we might consider painting our rooms this weekend. Let's see what will become of these plans...

Late April Fool's

Oh my goodness. Look what I found on You Tube. HILARIOUS!!!

First Week Back at School

I tracked back on for the last trimester on Monday. Monday was a minimum day since it was a track on day and Wednesday was a minimum day because all Wednesday are minimum days for prep time. It was a very sweet set up 2 regular days and 2 minimum days. Why then did this week seem like it was 14 days long????

Here are a few reasons:

1) I got a new student on Monday. He is a sweet kid and he is working at grade level. This week has been busy though trying to figure out his academic placement as well as work out his bus schedule and figure out custody issues.

2) Monday night was the first night of Passover. After school my mom and I had to rush home to prepare the meal before my brothers and my grandmother arrived at 6:30. It was a race against the clock but we did it. Thank goodness that my mom cooked the brisket the night before. I was also happy to sit for a while during the Seder just to have a chance to relax!

3) A student who left in December FINALLY returned on Monday. THANK GOODNESS that I didn't delete her grades file! I found out some interesting information when we walked around the track this week during PE time. I am not sure why they stayed in Mexico for so long but I do know that her mom couldn't come back with them because "si viene con nosotros en la troca la van a meter en la carcel!" (if she came with us in our truck they would put her in jail!) Ay! Pobrecita.

4) One of my students had a rotten day on Tuesday. I talked to his mom about it and she said
"yeah well we are moving." I asked when that would be and she said that it they were moving on Friday. (this Friday!) I didn't ask why but I think that there is/was a problem with his parents. I was busy prepping his things for him to go and then the next day, when I called to tell mom that his day was MUCH better, she said "oh yeah, we aren't moving anymore. We worked things out. That is probably why his day was better." Poor guy!

5) Tuesday night we had to race home from school to make it to our community Seder at the synagogue. We were running very late but we ended up making it just in time. The Seder was great, the food was good, Sabi found the first Afikomen BUT the Seder was LONG!!! We got home very late.

6) We found out that our vice principal is moving to another school. He has only been with us for a year and we really like him! :-(

7) The Superintendent of my school district showed up in my room today. I signed up for a Rotary Club reader to read to my class. Guess who came??? I was a little stressed out but the kids were excellent and enjoyed the visit.

I am looking forward to this three day weekend.

Matzah Man

Click here for a good laugh!

Happy Passover

Afikomen
Originally uploaded by msabcmom.

Manischewitzville