Catching Up

Hi! I'm back! The traveling is over for a while! We have had a wonderful time, but I am so relieved that I don't have to pack again any time soon!! Phew!
First, I'll just show off a few pictures of our travels:

We went to Savannah, GA and ate at a place called the Pirate's House. Crumpet is all about pirates right now, and he adored this place. Here he is with the giant anchor out front:
We went to Daytona Beach where Crumpet spent hours and hours doing his favorite thing : digging with trucks! The beach is the best place on Earth for this!

And we went to all 4 of the Disney parks. This was the first time we met Mickey. We weren't sure Crumpet would be brave enough to meet the characters, but he hugged and posed with everyone.

We went to the Lego Store in Downtown Disney. These dogs and people (except Crumpet of course) are made of Legos. This was a really cool place, and we spent a fortune on Crumpet's new hobby. Most of it was for Christmas though, so it's not so bad, right?!Meeting his hero, Lightning McQueen at Hollywood Studios:

This is a really bad picture of one of the few educational things we've done this month. At the Animal Kingdom, there are stations where you can do little studies in nature. At this one, we had a card with pictures of animals one might find in their backyards. We had to search around the area to find each of the creatures and then mark it off on the card. Crumpet really enjoyed it, and I'm planning to make my own version for our nature walks.

Meeting Thumper:

Digging for fossils in the play area at the Animal Kingdom. Another really great educational activity. Crumpet was absolutely convinced that these were real mammoth bones and that he was the first to find them, ever. It was kind of difficult to explain why the staff covered the bones back up when we were leaving at the end of the day... I felt so bad!

We made it home just in time for Halloween. Crumpet was a pirate - no surprise there!!

We went to the zoo with visiting friends, which is something we always enjoy.

When all the travels were over, we were desperate to do a little crafting, since it had been so long. We built a car out of a paper towel roll, milk bottle tops, and toothpicks:

And we sponge painted this fall tree. Crumpet loved using the sponges! Both of these crafts are from Family Fun magazine.

Now, we are trying to get back into some kind of routine. I have so many things I want to change and organize around here that I'm making myself a little nuts trying to get it all right immediately. I know that it's unreasonable, but I'm struggling with my limitations!

I saw a serious backslide in Crumpet's knowledge of the basics toward the end of our trips. He forgot how to count past 5! He forgot some names of shapes. I was shocked, and really annoyed with myself for just letting it all go. But we've done some review and he's back where he was now. Time to start learning new things!

I'm planning to be much more prepared about schoolwork from now on. I've made out an actual schedule so that we study certain subjects on certain days. We will also use our version of workboxes, which I'll fill on Saturday nights. (My husband works Sun-Wed so we will do school on the days he is working.) I copied Nicole's spreadsheet (Tired, Need Sleep) for organizing possible activities to use during each week, and I think it will help me keep track of my ideas at last. I have paper lists everywhere, and I love my lists, but I LOSE my lists. So I'm trying something new! Thanks, Nicole!

And I've decided to just go ahead and use the word school with Crumpet. He rebels against anything that looks like something I'd like him to do. If it's expected or required, he won't do it. I was tiptoeing around the school thing, calling everything we did "projects" or "games". He figured it out though, and even if it was something he enjoyed, he started refusing to participate. So we had a talk, and I told him that from now on, he will be required to do some daily learning with me. I'll try to make it as fun as possible! But it is required. It really is time he learned to follow some directions and work on a vague schedule, I suppose!

We started today, and I have to admit it was a huge struggle. Crumpet is on another planet these days - constantly pretending, and spinning in circles and bouncing off the walls. Getting him to focus on anything is really rough. By the end of our lessons, which really are just a bunch of games, I was ready to pull my own hair out. I'm hoping it will improve as it becomes more routine... I'll post about it all at the end of the week, if the men in the white coats haven't taken me away!!

I think I'm going to start linking my school posts to the Preschool Corner. We are still sort of between Tot School and Preschool, but we were the oldest ones over at Tot School, and I'm starting to look for more advanced activities. So, I hope you'll follow me there!

Here's my favorite recent pic:

Have a great week!