I don't even know if I remember how to blog anymore.. it has been so long. But I have gone through so many old emails from old account and noticed that there were several people requesting where I purchase headbands from, so I've updated my email so I can get in touch with you better.

Update on our Natalie, she is 6 1/2, in 1st Grade and doing so WELL! She just got approved to wear a mini mic 2+ in class so her teacher and specials teachers can talk to her and she can listen even better. She loves school, speaks clearly, listens so well and is excelling. I am always amazed how well she hears.

Tomorrow we head up for another audiology appointment. It is a small world because when we first started this journey, the mom that I originally connected with to find out about the cochlear implant headbands goes to the same audiologist that we got to now. We have gotten to know their family well this past summer and excited to see them again over Thanksgiving too. So thankful for our cochlear implant community.

April - "Gardens"

Taken from the toddler blog:

What a fun month we had learning in the garden.  The toddlers are now experts at catching butterflies, looking for bugs and even dressing up like butterflies and flying around the room.  They pretended to plant flowers, dig in the dirt/sand and pick flowers from the yard.  It was also nice to go outside to OVV's garden and pick real flowers for the teachers and the teacher's aides! 

While the toddlers loved many of this month's activities, they especially enjoyed reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  It was so fun to help the caterpillar eat all of that fruit!  Lastly, the toddlers really enjoyed planting some real seeds in the garden.  Hopefully you will see the fruits of their labor very soon!

Natalie's 3rd birthday

Natalie celebrated with her school friends for her 3rd birthday. Everyone loves a treat! I had brought in sugar cookies instead of cupcakes (sometimes cupcakes can be so messy). I guess Natalie was super confused at where to have them put her candle in. That is why she has these strange faces.

March - "Ponds and Parks"

These themes are always so cute.

Our classroom park was filled with all kinds of fun activities this month!  We went fishing in the pond, we fed the ducks & frogs and even grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for a picnic in the park.  We painted rainbows and frogs with our hands & even jumped like frogs and swam like fish around the room.  We especially enjoyed crossing over the bridge and singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as we rocked in our wooden boat with our friends.  If you take us to a real park, we can show you all that we have learned!

Here is a snapshot of our new theme, Ponds & Parks.  The toddlers will be spending some of their day in a serene, park-like setting.  They will also be taking care of a family of ducks who lives by our classroom pond and feeding real, live frogs!  Be sure to ask them about it!

February - "Zoo Adventures"

February was zoo month. I love seeing the transformation each classroom makes each time they switch themes. They recently added a few more toddlers to their classroom, so they created an extra room (now they rotate through 3 rooms) to help with space and student:teacher ratio better.

This was taken from her classroom blog:

We had a fantastic time exploring the language of animals during the month of February.  Each day, the toddlers were able to visit our classroom zoo.  They were experts at taking care of all of those zoo animals!  Sometimes the animals were sick.  Luckily, the toddlers had to time to grab their veterinarian kits and were able to help those poor animals get better. 

The toddlers dressed up like zoo keepers and went on the zoo/safari bus.  Using their trusty binoculars and cameras, the toddlers were pros at finding the all of the animals who were hiding in the grass. 

We walked like animals, listened to animal sounds and even created some animal artwork while exploring our senses.  Ask your child to "walk like an elephant," "hop like a kangaroo" or even "roar like a lion." 

Jessica - teacher aide

circle time.. ready to go home for the day

January - "Transportation"

January wrap up.. They did the transportation unit at school. This was a fun one for Natalie. The weather was cold most of the month, but they did get to go outdoors a few times to play. There seemed to be lots of sickness going around the school and we did have a few sick days we missed. We also went on a quick trip to Dallas with Natalie as well to check out some possible school options in case we move there.

Some highlights:

-putting rocks in the trucks
-painting a boxcar
-making a train track
-singing wheels on the bus
- putting soap on her car and washing it off
-guessing the sounds as they sit on a pretend bus

here they are guessing the sounds they hear 

the room all decorated for this theme

Speech Therapy Highlights:

-wearing both CI's and then one at a time and detecting all Ling sounds - "ah, ee, oo, mm, sh, ss"
-identifying 4 words differing only in vowel sounds - "coke, cake, kick
- identifying 2 words in the middle of a phrase - "put the red bird on the board"
-working on the "ing" to words (she is actually very good at this for her hearing age)
-working on adding "is" and "ing" together in a sentence
- reviewing words
- asking "who is..?"
- using a lot of prepositions spontaneously during speech

painting with Spirit

getting the car all dirty with soap so she can wash it off

they have their cute little faces on the bicycles

playing with Spirit

sitting by Liesel 

Sedona is the new girl added to her class in the front next to Mac

2nd Hearing Birthday

We celebrated January 24th for Natalie's 2nd hearing birthday. We were all recovering still from being sick but we like to get her a cake each year to celebrate this great day! 2 years ago she was activated for the first time to hear. Such a blessing and such amazing strides this year. I'm hoping to get some time to go through all my videos and edit and show you all how well she is talking this year. If you want to watch her old video from last year I made, click here.