Homeschool update **updated

Things are going great! I did not expect this to be so much fun but it is. Josiah makes it fun!

He is reading and I mean really reading. I can no longer spell things to Jeremy to keep the kids from knowing what I am trying to say. I did this the other day and Josiah repeated the word I had spelled out. oops!

Yesterday I opened our Math book and saw the lesson had Christmas pictures. Yep, we are ahead. WAY AHEAD! I wanted us to be ahead so we could take Thanksgiving to Christmas off but I did not mean to get this far ahead. Jeremy thinks I should keep going and order the 1st grade curriculum for math when we are finished (this may end up happening in the Spring). But I am finding plenty of things to do with numbers. Enchanted Learning has some stuff I printed out and I have some other math supplies on hand. So I'm going to hold off a little while longer because I would really like him to see the Math lessons with Christmas pictures after Halloween. :) Not that it really matters.

His writing and spelling is another area he seems to enjoy. He has started writing letters to me. "Josiah is sad becus he lost his green marker." He spelled every word correctly except for the word "because". He never asked for my help. This is the kind of stuff that blows my mind! How did he do that? WOW! I'm so proud. There is a saying, "Girls are smarter than boys". Well, it does not apply to Josiah. He is smart. I was not very smart and I don't think my husband was either so we are not sure where he gets it from. :) Not that we were dumb either. Hopefully someone understands what I mean by this.

About a month ago we bought gold fish. Five of them. Only one remains while the others have died. This has given him a lot of joy. He gets to feed the fish and help Daddy clean the little tank. Since he has showed such an interest in fish, I decided to do a study with him on fish. This has a been a great Science lesson for him! Enchanted Learning actually has some diagrams of fish where you are able to teach the child how to label the fish. This week we are learning the names of each part.

We are also doing a little bit of Texas History. Fun facts like the state flower, tree, bird and so on. He loves this kind of stuff and I like teaching it to him. It also helps me remember some stuff I have forgotten. It's been good to work my brain too!

As far as arts/crafts. We did the Thankful Tree and tomorrow we are making some spiders with black pipe cleaners, squiggly eyes and pom-poms. I'm ready for November because we are going to make a lot of Thanksgiving decorations for our Pilgrim & Indian feast. I'm hoping I can find a homeschooling Mom to join us for this. I just found out one of my friends has a sister who homeschools a kindergartner so I was thinking we could invite them. :)

** We are still in the midst of working on FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT. This week is faithfulness. Every single week has been a lot of fun as we have journeyed together trying to understand what the fruits of the spirit mean for our daily lives. How do we live it out? It's been great for our relationship as a family. Josiah is quick to remind me when I am not being patient or kind. :)

I love my job! I love homschooling. I love being a Mom. It's an amazing thing to realize how God has answered those prayers I prayed when I was single woman. He has been faithful to answer those prayers. I am blessed. So blessed!