Progress Report

Mom and Dad Gertz’s house is really coming along. The siding is up on the outside. The drywall is up on the inside and half is painted already. Steve and Dad installed kitchen cabinets last week, and appliances are coming this week. Steve might be working on it only one more month (at which point we really need to have another job lined up!!!). Please pray that he’ll find a job soon. He’s continuing to send out applications.

Steve’s Arabic is also progressing! He now knows all the letters of the alphabet (and their various forms depending on their position in a word) and has written me my first Arabic “love note” =) (It read لس حبيبتي “Lisa, my darling”) My understanding of Arabic is increasing too, though I’m not putting in nearly as much time as Steve is.

Naomi is improving her reading everyday, and Josiah can name all the uppercase letters. It is fun to see how Naomi’s reading inspires Josiah. He looks at print now and tries to “read” it, he thinks about initial sounds in words and often names the correct letter, and he loves to make rhyming words.

They have also now completed two Godly Composer units, one about Vivaldi and the other about Bach. We’ll begin a study of Handel this week. For math/science, I’m using a book called Count on Math, which begins with a lot of exploration. We played with texture, floating, sinking, color-mixing, food changes during cooking, using our senses, etc. Now we’re beginning the next section which focuses on spatial relationships. For literature, we’ve made doughnuts after reading Imogene’s Antlers, had a pillow fight after reading Ira Sleeps Over, made cookies for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, made shaped bread for Bread and Jam for Frances, and bounced on pillow “islands” to get away from alligators after reading There’s An Alligator Under My Bed.

Ethan hasn’t taken his first steps yet, but just loves to stand. He wants to stand in the bath tub, in his booster seat, outside and inside. He has good enough balance to stand on his own, crouch down to pick something up, and then stand back up. As he’s only 10 months old, there’s no rush for him to walk. We enjoy him just the way he is!