I've been meaning to do this entry for a month now.  I've been wanting to take some more picutres of him for the entry but I haven't gotten it done so I'm posting anyway. 

Mark has accomplished so much in the past few months.  Each time I think of all he can do, I think of the beginning of the Franklin books "Franklin can tie his shoes and count by two's" 

Mark can do that but he is also now reading, can snap (both hands), count by 10's and whistle.  I took this picture of him with his book and while reading back in November. 

He and Sam were being silly in this next picture and I just love the big smile:

And here he is reading:

Now a funny thing is that if you ask Mark if he can read, his answer will be "no".  Because he can't read the books that the older three read, he doesn't think he's reading.  I'm not sure what he thinks he IS doing but it's definitely not reading. 

Mark is so excited.  He finished his math book today. 

I took a little video of him saying he is done with his math book.  He was much louder and jumping around prior to me taking the video.  I think this link will work to see the video clip. 

One of the questions in his math today was this:

You have 4 green balls and 2 purple balls.  If you put them in a box, closed your eyes, and picked only one, what color would it probably be?

Mark's answer was "purple"  I asked him why.  His response:  Because you and me's favorite color is purple.  (yes, I know that grammar isn't correct.  I'm typing his exact response)  :-)

Then on another page the question was this:

If you put these socks in a box, closed your eyes, and picked only one sock, what color would it probably be?

Now in the picture there were: 6 white socks, 6 brown socks and 7 black socks. 

Mark's answer was:  "either white, brown or black"  

One of Mark's favorite books is Grasshopper on the Road.  It was a recommended book from My Father's World K for one of our units.  We have read this book A LOT.  We had to return it to the library but today we got it again.  Before nap today when we were getting ready to read, he requested this book.  I began reading and he kept saying "no, Mommy, please read it the same way"  I said, "okay" and continued reading.  He would interrupt, "Mommy, PLEASE read it the same way"  I really didn't know what he meant and instead of asking what he meant, I just said "okay" and kept reading.  Again he interrupted and said "Mommy, please read it the SAME way"  Notice the different words he chose to put emphasis on.  :-)  I finally asked him what he meant.  He said, "You know, with the same voices as you usually do"  Then it took me a while to get the right voice.  I couldn't remember what voices I had used for each character in the story but he remembered.  I was finally able to read the book the "same" way.  He was very happy and then off to nap he went. 

I don't know why I am surprised at the smaller things that keep children busy, happy and occupied for hours at a time.  Mark has played so much with this box and stuffed animals.   He will sit and play with it all for hours (if I let him)

And then running a close 2nd are his cowboy hat, stick horse and his rope.

He cracks me up how he'll add into his play books we have read.  While riding his horse (stick horse) the other day, he yelled out "I'm coming to help you Mike and Mary Ann"  (from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel) 

Since I have begun working from home, our days are starting out a bit different. I used to get up at 5am and get my day going and the children started getting up at 6am.  Now that I work from home, I often work 4am - 6am.  On the days I don't work, I have been sleeping until 6:30 am.  We have had to adjust our schedule a bit but I must say I really like how it is working out.  The children now don't get up until 7am.  The older three go about taking care of their chores etc... and Mark is my helper in the morning.  It has really been a joy having him as my morning helper.  It has been a great way to invest time in him first thing in the day (start fillig that love tank) and for tying heart-strings.  It also keeps him out of the way of the older children.  The first thing we do each morning is to grind some wheat.

I will explain the notes on the cabinet behind Mark in another entry. 

While the wheat is grinding, Mark usually does something silly like pretend to sleep and I act surprised and wake him up.

Then we proceed with making our breakfast.  Recently we have been making muffins.  Mark's favorite is choc. chip muffins.  Here is his favorite part of helping with the morning work.

Look at that smile.  He always asks if he can eat just a few.    We have so much fun and we get in lots of learning too.  Each day I give him a different amount of chips he can eat (or blueberries or whatever kind of muffins we are making)  I will ask him to count them.  Then I ask him how many he had yesterday.  Then we add those numbers together and we subtract them to see how many more (or less) he has today than yesterday.  We have so much fun.  It is really working out wonderfully.  I love spending this time with him each morning.  I love haivng him share his thoughts with me.  The other morning he said, "Mommy, I have da (the) runny nose and cough again"  I said, "I'm sorry."  He said, "why do me have da runny nose and cough again?"  As I was thinking of what answer to give he said, "I tink (think) I know why.  I tink day (they) love me." 

Recently Mark was playing with his Little People.  This is what I heard him saying:

"Look at da (the) serpent pole and you will be healed.  You no look at serpent pole and you no be healed."  I looked over to try and figure out what he was doing and I saw he had some little people lying down (dead) because they didn't look at the serpent pole and he had others walking around because they had obeyed and were healed. 

Seeing Mark play this way was a big reminder to me that they are ALWAYS listening.  He doesn't participate in our bible time; however, he is always in the room with us.  It is obvious he is listening and learning. 

I created my "Preschool Fun" category a while back and am now FINALLY posting in it.  I am using a few different things with Mark this year.  Last year we went through Before Five in a Row.  We had much fun.  He is ready for some of the FIAR books but not all so I plan to use those some this year. 

We are also using some things from Hands of a Child.  If you haven't checked out their site, you must.  They have lots of great stuff.  We chose to do Ants Go Marching first with Mark.  We had so much fun with this.  He learned a lot too!! :-)  Some of the things he learned about are:

• sinking and floating
• good manners and not so good manners
• full and empty
• seasons
• up and down
• land and water animals
• things made from wood
• things that have wheels

Some of the things (like up and down) he already knew but he did pick up quite a bit of new stuff and I was surprised at some of the things he learned so easily. 

Before I share pictures of his book I must share about the great customer service at Hands of a Child.   I am lapbooked challenged.  I'm not a creative person at all.  Their directions are wonderful on how to put it together.  There was one part that I just couldn't understand so I e-mailed them.  They replied right away and sent me another diagram of how to do it.  A+++++ customer service from them!!!  Also, if you have this lapbook, this one looks a bit different.  There were a couple of activities we didn't do so Mark's doesn't contain everything this project could contain.

top left are counting logs (logs w/ numbers on them and Mark had to glue the appropriate number of ants on each log)

bottom left -- wheels mini book

top middle -- his rain poem (he really didn't "get" this but tha'ts okay)

rest of middle -- land and water animals

right side -- he had to look at the number on the outside of the matchbook and find the proper number of ants and glue them inside the matchbook.

left side -- the rest of the matchbooks

top middle -- up and down book next to that is his manners book

accordian log (beginning, middle, end)

sink or float shutter book

beside that is his seasons pocket

right side top -- full/empty book

wheels minibook

accordian counting ants two by two

We also included his wood coloring but you can't see it in the picture.

Here is Mark with his finished project.