education | Hubbard's Cupboard

Reflecting on 2024
It was far from easy, but we had a lot of fun and continue to see the guiding hand of God in our lives every day.

Micah (13) is thriving in his hybrid school experience. He’s taking his first AP class, 10th-grade Secondary Math II Honors, 9th-grade English, and is even enrolled in SLCC—all while being an awesome 8th grader with 8th-grade friends! He attends school half-day to participate in history, creative coding, and a highly ranked robotics team. This year, we let Micah travel to New Jersey for a national robotics competition, where he got to see the Statue of Liberty and Times Square. He also attended two Young Men’s camps: one with our home ward and another with the Chinese ward.

Quentin (11) is having a blast on his robotics team, which is coached by May-Bo. He’s excelling in 6th grade, juggling seven classes with seven teachers—a big switch from elementary school! He’s already completed 6th-grade math in half a year and even took first place in his gym class pickleball tournament. Quentin has lots of friends at many different schools and continues to be a social butterfly. As always, he has a special charm when caring for the little kids at home.

Emily (9) is in 3rd grade and learned how to rollerblade this year. Now, she’s eager to learn ice skating and skiing! She’s working on improving her drawing skills, made new friends, and loves going to Classic Skating (just like Dallin and May-Bo did as kids!). Emily enjoys playing with her younger siblings and says Draper City Park is her favorite.

Jacob (7) started 1st grade and LOVES going to school! He has an amazing teacher and is doing so well. Jacob also learned to rollerblade this year and is constantly on wheels—we can’t seem to stop him! He’s full of energy and keeps us all on our toes.

Cumorah (5) is ready to start kindergarten, but unfortunately, she has another year to wait. May-Bo homeschools her every morning, and with how tall and bright she is, she might just skip kindergarten next year. Cumorah is a homebody and actually loves staying at home.

Lily Mei (3) is developing her strong, independent personality. Her memory is incredible. When May-Bo lost her phone, Lily confidently declared, “Mommy, your phone fell down into the big couch.” Sure enough, it was there—something even Find My iPhone couldn’t help with because the phone was dead!

Logan (1) is crawling like a pro but isn’t quite ready to walk. He’s the most curious and calm baby we’ve had—such a joy!

May-Bo stays busy keeping up with the kids, chess club, and robotics. After having gestational diabetes with Logan, her fasting blood sugars remain high despite a very low-carb diet and being at her lowest weight since high school. She feels better than ever eating this way, but her New Year’s goal is to exercise more to lower her A1C and fasting blood sugars. She’d love to have another baby but hopes to avoid insulin… so we’ll see! (An Easter egg for those of you who read this far. LOL!)

Dallin has been working hard to grow his pediatrics practice. He started Direct Care Pediatrics in June 2022. What began quietly is now ready to grow. It’s a hybrid clinic serving Utah families virtually and Salt Lake County locals in person. For now, Dallin is only doing virtual and home visits, but once the clinic remodel is finished, it will be located at 1434 E 9400 S #100, Sandy, UT 84093. His goal is to use technology to make healthcare less political, more accessible, and more affordable for everyone. With Uber Eats and grocery delivery so popular, now you can have the doctor and labs come to you, too!

We wish you a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Love,
The Hubbards

Here are our past years Christmas Cards:

My oldest son, Micah, is now 3 years and 5 months old. He is starting to sound out words and reading short words! I’m seriously so proud of him. My goal is to teach him how to read before he goes into Kindergarten. I’ve been teaching my son how to read ever since he was interested in letters which was well before he was 18 months old. I definitely think this is from Dallin’s genes cause I have never been interested in reading very much at all.

I broke it down to three easy steps. I’m writing this down so I can teach my next kid how to read but may be it’ll help someone else too.

Teach your child to recognize all the UPPERcase letters
Then teach your child to recognize all the lowercase letters
MAKE IT FUN!!! Teach your kids letter sounds as you would teach them animal sounds. (ex. What does a M say? mmmmmm) With this step I needed a little bit of help and guidance, I’ll list the resources I have used below.

After talking to my mom friends, I really think phonics is the way to begin teaching kids how to read.

First book, my neighbor suggested Teach Your Child How to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has a really boring introduction of instructions for the parents, but once we started the lessons my son seriously took the book and blossomed. Everyday you only do one lesson and it last about 20 minutes. Everything is outlined for you so I didn’t even have to plan anything. It gives you the order to teach the letter sounds, starting with the more obvious sounds like M and S and A then moving towards more complicated sounds like silent E’s… ect. Three reasons why I love the book is 1) it’s super easy for me 2) it teaches kids how to read and not just memorize the words 3) It makes reading into a game.

Another friend suggested the Three Owl’s Reading Method which unfortunately is out of press and I can’t find a copy anywhere. Micah loves these little books!!! This is more of a Montessori approach to teaching kids how to read. The first sounds that it teaches kids are the vowels sounds: a, e, ee, i, o, oo, u. Since it’s out of print, may be I’ll recreate the books and put them online. Dr. Hulda Clark who created the reading system died back in 2009. I’ll email the publisher to find out what I can do. Micah loves Owl’s Eyes more than Teach Your Child How to Read in 100 Easy Lessons because they come in little colorful books his size.

The third resource I’ve used to help my child learn how to read is Hooked on Phonics Ipad App. While I’m not a huge fan of their curriculum (mostly their story books are weird), I love love the letter sounds songs and the games they made for their app. Micah loves this app!

Of course, I don’t believe in forcing children to learn how to read but it’s been so fun for Micah that he’s forcing me to teach him how to read!

Now I’m not an expert at this but my younger son, Quentin is 18 months… I started asking him “What sound does M make?” and he replies with “mmmmmmm”. So I truly believe that when a child starts imitating animal sounds they can totally start learning letter sounds too! 🙂

I’ll end with my favorite scripture in Doctrine and Covenants:

D&C 88:118 …seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

What tips and tricks do you have to teach kids how to read?

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