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WEST JORDAN, Utah (AP) -- Nobody seems to be able to nail down the mystery at Hayden Peak Elementary School. After years of just having a couple of twins enrolled in the school, this year kindergarten teachers are nurturing seven sets of twins.
Some joke there was something in the water that year. The school nurse suggests it was a long cold winter, and the principal said it could be because there are just more children at Hayden than other elementary schools.
Nonetheless teachers say it's a lot of fun and only a little challenging so far.
"They are just so delightful every one of them and even though they are twins they all have their own unique personalities," said kindergarten teacher Pat Drake.
The sets aren't too hard to spot. They are often holding hands or cuddling, and they never stray too far apart.
"I like to be twins because I like to love my brother," said 5-year-old David Broadhead, giving his brother Ethan a hug. "I like my twin because we made a snowball that was really big."
The twins' consensus was that the best thing about t winhood is always having their best friend with them, always having someone to play with.
For the children, having a twin is no novelty -- it's as simple and normal as anything else.
"We just got born like that on the same day," said Kami Ellett, 5, who said she wants to stay in her sister's class forever.
Kambrea and Kayden Zarogoza are the only twins at the school who are boy/girl, and Kambrea thinks that's funny.
"He's a boy and we're twins," she said. "That's just silly."
At the beginning of the year the school actually had 10 sets of twins in kindergarten. Three families moved away, and one set is off track now, since the school is on a year-round schedule. But Drake teaches three of the sets this year, all identical twins, two sets in the morning, one in the afternoon. The other twins are spread among two other classes.
"I really have to focus lots of times I focus in on what they are wearing when they come in the door in the morning, and that way I can tell them apart," Drake said.
Parents sometimes help teachers out in telling their children apart.
Drake said Emilee and Rachel Oliphant's mom helps out by putting two ribbons, bows or ponytails in Emilee's hair because Emilee has two E's at the end of her name.
Denise Brinley, Hunter and Jacob's mom, usually dresses one in blues and one in greens, their favorite colors, to help teachers keep track of which one is which.
"I still sometimes call them by the wrong name," Drake said. "But it's important that I keep track because they are their own selves, and I don't want to try and identify one with the other."
But for the twins themselves, telling each other apart is a cinch.
"She is shy, I'm not," Emilee said. "And I have a mole and she doesn't, and she is the oldest but I'm the biggest."
But David and Ethan said they are keeping the key to telling them apart a secret.
"We like to trick people ... we switch our pajamas and our clothes to trick our mom and our dad," David said.
Emilee and Rachel said they do the same thing to their grandma and grandpa.
"It's funny," Rachel said.
The twins' teachers say aside from telling them apart, there are no real challenges in the classroom. Drake generally tries to seat twins apart in class to help them develop as individuals.
"They don't sit together and that is on purpose. In each one of the sets that I have I see somewhat of a dominant one, and I don't want the dominant one to take over," Drake said. "I want the one that is less dominant to be able to find themselves."
It seems to be working. Drake said they each seem to have some of their own friends in the classroom. But on the playground or during fire drills they find each other first.
Melanie Broadhead, David and Ethan's mom, said she plans on keeping them in the same class for the next few years because they do best, academically and socially, together.
"Coming to kindergarten has been great for that because each of them now has their own set of friends and, at least for these two, it is beneficial that they are in the same class," Broadhead said. "They are very, very close and they definitely do better when they are together."
Brinley said at first she was concerned about Hunter and Jacob being in the same class because she didn't want them labeled as twins They learn differently, they are different people but they are such good friends that for now it would be really hard if they weren't with each other, she said.
She said the biggest challenge is in teaching two children to read and write at the same time.
"Both need a lot of focus and a lot of effort and they need a lot of extra attention," she said.
Broadhead said her biggest struggle is getting her twins ready and out the door in the mornings. "They need the exact same things at the exact same time and that's a challenge."
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
