Ezekiel has had a busy couple of months. He continues to be excited about Tae Kwon Do and is now the proud owner of a Light Blue Belt. He is doing really well and his balance and flexibility gets better all the time. Of course his favorite thing is that now that he is above green belt he can Spar. He loves sparring. He actually wishes they had more time for sparring. Ultimately he wants to compete in Tae Kwon Do sparring and then move to Mixed Martial Arts. Now that he is a Light Blue Belt he also gets to start studying Child Hap Ki Do. This will be a good way to start moving toward a mixed discipline. He has asked to study Jujitsu or kickboxing once he gets his black belt in Tae Kwon Do. We will see.
In addition to Tae Kwon Do three days a week he took homeschool swim lesson 2 days a week for 2 months. Last year it was really good this year it was just a fun time in the pool for him. He learned absolutely nothing and I was a bit frustrated with getting everyone up early and dragging them off to the pool for no benefit. However, we did find that Shepherd college (2 miles down the road) where they had the swim lessons, also offers private lessons at the pool. Finally a place for him to take private lessons and improve his technique without traveling over an hour one way to VA each time. So, after the new year we are going to get him a membership at the pool and pay for swim lessons once a week.
Of course while all this is going on he is also going to keep running with me and we hope to do our first race together in February. We were going to run a race in December but it turned out to be the same weekend I am running the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis with my friend Mari in Florida. If we did not home school this all would not be possible. I love homeschooling for so many reasons, but especially because it opens up so many other opportunities in life that there just would not be time for if the kids went to a traditional school. We would never be able to swim in the mornings, when everyone else is in school, or run in the afternoons when they are still in school. I am also so grateful that Zeke is interested in activities other than "traditional" sports. Not that I don't love baseball and football, but they have become so political, and time consuming etc. . . I'm not sure it is as much the time as the inflexible schedule of those activities.
School is still going well. During the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas we are taking a break from all the usual subjects, and focusing on Language Arts. This is the first year he has to write a research paper, so we are going to spend time working on putting together a good paper and learning the process right. He is finishing up his book for his book report right now. He is reading Chasing Lincoln's Killer. He is definitely a history kid. Although, this year he seems to actually be showing more interest in Science than in previous years, and actually claims to love math. Unfortunately there has been no such change in his dislike and struggles with spelling. We are working hard at improving his spelling scores and he seems to be doing better.
In other news, he is now 9 years old, 4 foot 6, 75 pounds, and wears a size 8 shoe.
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