October Update

 

 This month we have been working hard on writing our ABC's.  Now Nate, Shane and Fred can trace from A to Z by themselves.  Jonathan has a harder time with the fine motor skills, he can do most of the letters but needs my help for only a few now.

Chris is not yet 3 and has a hard time sitting very long.  He can now do from A to L by himself if I'm there to keep him on task.  It is amazing what a little praise after finishing each letter can do...just means I have to be there to praise him for each letter.

Mary will be 2 in about two weeks.  She loves writing time.  She will trace some of the letters on her own, but mostly just likes to draw.  We write her name together and talk about the letters.  She already knows most of her letters by sight.  At first we had a little trouble with her not wanting to stop writing and give me her pen.  But I have found that if I ask her to put the pens away for me, she is so excited and then it accomplishes our clean up task.

 

Fred has picked up the ABC's very quickly.  He went from only knowing the F for his name to being able to trace all the ABC's correctly in only two or three times helping him.

  

Shane was able to write most of his capital and lowercase ABC's when he came to school.  He still loves to practice alongside the other children.

This next month I am going to have the children start writing a second of each letter next to the traced one.  I'm sure it will be difficult like their first day tracing, but it is amazing teaching children and to see how quickly they catch on and learn things.

 

I mentioned last month about some of the boys being pretty active.  I am happy to be able to say that the children are now able to sit when I ask them.  They can now study for about an hour.  Of course they aren't sitting the whole time.  We do little songs, dances and games in between, but when I ask them to sit they do until the next chance to wiggle.  Of course this is not 100% of the time, but a good 80%.  

I'm so happy with how much they are learning and excited to see at the end of the year what these kids will be able to say and do. 

 In school we do also teach Myanmar.  This is the Myanmar alphabet.  

I'm getting a good practice each day on the Myanmar basics as well.

 This is Chris and the other day he dumped out the tub of nuts and bolts and used two of them as his drumsticks and the tub was his drum.  

It was so cute to watch him drumming away.

I love the imaginations that children have!!

 Here are Chris and Mary.  At times the activities that the older boys are doing are a little wild for them.   

So we get out this animal puzzle and work on it together.

 

 One of the biggest hits at school this last month was a car that I made from a washing machine box.

I had made it before school started and tried using it when we had only Fred and Jonathan, but they had no interest in it at that time.  

All they wanted to do was dump out and scatter all the toys they could find.

It is fun to see how much they have already grown and learned. They have learned how to play with one thing and then clean up. And they can play together now and talk about what they are imagining.  

The kids have taken numerous imaginary trips to the zoo in this car...

 Here Shane is driving.  He drives the most out of all the children.

In fact, outside of school he is almost always driving.  Our TV remote becomes a steering wheel and just about anything else he can imagine looks like a steering wheel or handle bars for a motorcycle.

I am so thankful for the opportunity that God has given me to teach these children!

May God bless all of you who are supporting us in your prayers and giving!