Grace Is Growing Up

Sweet sister kisses

Grace and Katherine match as often as possible-Katherine's suggestion. I'm thankful that Katherine has a sister to match. I might not look as cute in striped overalls!Katherine and Grace are having more and more fun together now that Grace is getting bigger.

Grace's bath tub mirror

Grace loves the "baby" in the mirror

Grace gets very excited and kisses the "baby"

Everyone else is growing up too.

Jonathan has recently taken off in math exploration. He told us "hey, 5+4+2=11." I asked him what on earth made him think of that and he said "my fan." I looked at Jeffrey for an explanation- 5 blades, 4 lights, and 2 chains. Oh. My mind is not naturally mathematical so I am amazed. He also has made the connections of groups of numbers. He said just the other day "6 2's is 12. 3 2's is 6." He and Katherine are also learning to read- at different rates. I really had not been working with Katherine on reading other than letter sounds and a few three letter words. She, however, is so quick with languages that her intuition often helps her to guess the content of a story and what should naturally come next. Needless to say she does not want to be left behind in the world of reading so she is trying with all her might to keep up with Jonathan. The two of them are making our kick off to homeschooling quite easy. I am relieved and really enjoying the process. I hope to always keep learning fun.

David has his own version of school. He is not satisfied to go and play toys alone. He tries very hard to hang out and be patient. When the level of difficulty is too much for him, I always try to include him in any possible way. Jonathan and Katherine enjoy watching his version of our activities. For example, instead of asking him which bear is 3rd in a line, I ask him which bear is red. Jonathan always laughs and thinks it is funny that David is doing colors instead of ordinal position. Because David already knows his colors he always feels quite successful. Another favorite activity is playing store. I allow them to go shopping for an item in the house. They then pay me using pennies and dimes. David always gets to have some change back when he goes shopping. Somehow he does not count by 10's yet! It is hilarious to watch.

God always sends me some kind of teaching activity at just the right time. Suddenly the world is full of learning opportunities and the kids are always ready to learn. Just recently we had a robin build a nest on our front porch light. The kids and I got to see the robin's eggs and see one baby that hatched. For a couple of weeks we watched the mother and father robin feeding the baby bird. They are all gone now, but any time we see a robin in the yard everyone says "there's mama bird."

That's all for now. Hope that you are well wherever you are in the world.