H-man turns 9!

Holman is our shy good looking man. He is kind and very smart and really funny when there is a familiar group. He changed schools this year which I was really worried about because he is so shy and resists change. But he prayed about it and I gave him the option of where to go. He felt impressed that he should change and he has done wonderfully. We through a party for him but it was very last minute and we asked Holman if he would like to have a party or would he like us to buy Super Mario Brothers wii game. He chose the party. He invited a friend from his old school (Kau), a friend form his new school (Katelyn), his cousin (Kate) and and his neighbor (Derek) to join us to go to the movies. We saw Frozen which luckily the boys enjoyed. The movie was very cute. Later we came back for pizza. The kids all had a great time. But to his great luck one of his friends bought the Mario game for him! So he felt like he had a win win!

Son I love you so much! I love your sincerity and your helpfulness. I love that you are such a great big brother often steering your younger siblings away from danger. You are such an amazing young man and can't wait to see what man you will grow into!

Adrianna's tea party

Adrianna turned 4! We celebrated by having a tea party with some of her preschool pals. The whole table was pinked out! We had little sandwiches and little cakes and cookies. It was real fun, complete with the birthday girl having a meltdown! We love this little lady. She is our youngest and I really worried about not having a younger sibling to be her buddy. I have learned that every family needs a youngest and she is ours. She is so independent, she loves people but also loves alone play (this is probably very true since her mother has three preschool classes a week). She is sweet and loves to be a cuddle kitten. Much like a cat she gives affection only when she wants to, so when it is displayed it is from the heart and willingly. We love you very much you are our angel, our strong willed, beautiful girl!

Birthday Surprise

In late May we had a young man move into our ward. Our family notice this handsome guy instantly and asked Benjamin for details. He said his name was Dieter and was 17 and living on his own through a CPS program. Benajmin said he was a really nice and respectful young man so I said invite him over for dinner. We all liked him so much we kept inviting him over and we fell in love with him. Tragedy hit and his twin brother, who was also living independently through the same CPS program but in Prescott, died suddenly. We got to have Dieter stay at our house for a couple of days as he grieved and we traveled up for the funeral. After that we thought, hey we should have this guy move in, he is already a part of our family! So when he turned 18 in November we opened up our crazy Howe home for one more. He is great, hardworking, quite, thoughtful and respectful. He is a senior a will be graduating in May. So his life is wide open. We can't our family lucky to have him in our home and we documented this by having a family photo.

For his birthday we had a surprise party. We invited all the youth form our congregation for the party. We played minute to win it games. We had a great time, unfortunately Dieter was sick and had to leave the party early. Even thought he party ended early hopefully he understood how much is arrival has meant for us and the congregation, he has taught us a lot and hopefully he will for months to come.

unintentional social experiment

I teach 38 preschool students in 3 separate classes. I have four classroom rules: 1) Be kind 2) Be safe 3) Be a listener 4) Be the best you can be! This year I changed my reward system for good behavior. Instead of rewarding individuals for good classroom behavior I decided to reward the class for individual behavior. I did this by having a series of colorful balls in a large jar, when a student did something noteworthy I would remove a colorful ball from a large jar and put it in the smaller individual classroom jars. When these small jars were full of individual student acts the entire class would get a treasure chest item. I thought this new way would motivate the class and eliminate the animosity when one child gets rewarded and others do not. I thought the parents would be happier, in years passed I would often get questions about the treasure chest chart and how their kids were doing. When my son Holman was in preschool I remember wondering how many treasure chest items he individually received in relation to the other students. I thought this was the answer! Boy was I wrong!  I learned 3 valuable lessons.

1) When a collective group gets rewarded for an individual effort the motivation from the individual diminishes. Why try when an individual effort is just a collective drop in a very large bucket. Because I was rewarding on a group effort the reward needed to take longer to achieve than if it was a small goal.

2) Students that struggled with following direction were not motivated to change because "johnny" earned a ball, they did not think thanks Johnny for helping the team. His actions were not appreciated or even really noticed.

3) The last lesson I learned was when switching back to individual reward for individual efforts (a student does something noteworthy they get a star next to their name when they get 5 stars they get to choose from the treasure chest), the change in behavior is FAST!  The class as a whole is acting much better! Even kids who have struggled have been doing so much better.

Bottom line direct consequences for individual choices benefits the individual which directly effect the group!