Boyd Bear Tracks

We have now "done school" for 11 days. I think the excitement (for Lucas) wore off after about 3 days! Maybe it was a little later. All I know is that school became "not fun" when we hit the capital letter "B". He really dislikes writing it! Unfortunately, it´s not only a letter he´s learning; it´s also in his last name (which he has had to practice writing as well). Although, he is getting the hang of it. It´s just that his hand wasn´t used to making that motion. Since he´s had to practice it (write the letter 3 times a day), he´s been doing much better. Right now he just has a mental block that he "can´t do it".

Today we worked on writing out our house address (which he is learning to say in Spanish, of course). Once again, he had to write it 3 times. Amazingly, at rest time he wrote it (from memory) on his etch-a-sketch. Then tonight, he wrote it again to show to our neighbor lady (she came over for supper). I was pretty impressed! He doesn´t know how to say it yet, but at least he can write it!

I should probably update my story on Eliana and her beans. As I suspected, that only lasted until the end of the week. Now, since she´s seen Lucas using his, she wants to use her "cutters" (scissors). She loves cutting out pictures and gluing them onto pieces of paper. Unfortunately, I can´t let her work with them when I´m occupied elsewhere (maybe I could, but I won´t :-)!).

Another of her favorite activities is singing. She really enjoys our Bible time in the morning when we get to memorizing the verse for the week. We have a CD, "Sing the Word", which has a verse for every letter of the alphabet. This week we just started "C"--"Children obey your parents . . ." Eliana loves just listening and trying to sing along. Wherever she is in the house, as soon as she hears us start practicing our verse, she comes running! In fact, if I start without her, she gets upset :-)!

We have started singing a song in Spanish when we do our family devotions. The kids have learned several songs (I think we´re on our eighth! But, they are short ones.). Some Sunday I think I´ll have the kids do special music in church. This last Sunday I turned the microphone on and just let them practice. It was really cute!!

So, even though school is not as exciting anymore, at least it´s becoming a routine. It has been interesting to see how many things Lucas already knows (like counting and identifying patterns). And, I have had fun reading books! I´m trying to hold myself in check and not read ahead (without Lucas at least :-)).