Updates

It's really hard to find time to update this blog... but, sometimes I feel like I don't need to because my Mom is so good at keeping hers updated with info about Tanek! It's much easier to just go read hers. Anyway, Tanek is having so much fun this fall with his school and other activities. T-ball is in full swing and he loves to play "baseball". He's doing much better than he did in the spring, too. Sometimes, he actually makes it to base (every once in a while, he even makes it to home)! The last couple of games, he has gotten to play catcher - this makes him feel really important. He hasn't quite learned that he needs to hold the ball until the batter is done before throwing it back to the coach. Luckily, no one has gotten hit by a stray ball thrown by a very eager catcher!

We spend about an hour and a half doing school each day, a little more if you count the time spent reading to him. He likes math the best and practicing his handwriting the least! Nana likes the history readings the least. A lot of the history probably goes over his head, but he does remember some of it, especially when there are little projects that tie in with it. This past week, we made a golden calf out of peanut butter, honey, and powdered sugar. He had fun with that and had me read the story over again at least 5 times. If he remembers nothing else about Moses, the Israelites, and the golden calf, he will always remember a couple of things: the Israelites made the golden calf to worship it, but God is the only true God that we worship; and that Moses melted the golden calf and made the Israelites eat it (yes, there is a little more to it, but this is what he remembers). Oh, and that his golden calf tasted much better than theirs did!
Here is a picture of his "calf".





Today we made the layers of soil (edible soil, that is). We made the bottom, rocky layer out of chocolate chips, the rich topsoil out of crushed peanut butter crackers and crumbled up brownie, and then added slivered almonds as the layer of dead leaves. We talked about the rich, fertile soil the spies found in the land of Canaan. We also talked about how God seperated the earth from the water on the 3rd day of creation. On a side note, we also finished taking about the sky (clouds, rain, and snow) by doing a science experiment and making snow! Here is Tanek with his yummy soil:








He is doing really well with his reading and math. We're a little over half way through "The Reading Lesson" and working on his Explode the Code workbooks. He could breeze right through the ETC books if it weren't for all of the writing. We added the Singapore Math Essentials kindergarten workbooks to his math program which rounds out the Right Start math very well! Makes it a little more challenging for him. We keep plugging away with the handwriting, too, but he doesn't enjoy it much. That's why I started having him write a "letter" to his cousin Emily, because then he wanted to write! So, we'll be doing more of that in the future.

We're also continuing to memorize Psalm 23, and a new Bible verse each week. He loves listening to his Bible memory verse songs! He seems to memorize things very easily. He gets some of the actual scripture chapter and verses mixed up sometimes, but he's memorized quite a bit! We're still learning the states and capitals, too, and throwing in some geography here and there. Other than that, his main interest and obsession is with legos. He could spend hours everyday building his "Lego City". He pores over his lego catalogs on a daily basis talking about what he is going to build when he gets more of the legos that he wants. Of course, the ones he wants are not at a 4 yr. old level - he wants to have them for Mommy to put together so Tanek can play with them!