Preschool Week of 1/30

Well, it's been a heck of a few weeks. Things were going along great, schooling was fun, Crumpet was happy. Then, sadly, my mother-in-law passed away, and everything changed. We quickly packed up and drove to Texas. We had the chance to see everyone in the family, which was nice, but of course, the reason for the visit was very sad. Crumpet enjoyed playing on my in-laws' land and chasing their many cats, but now we're in recovery-from-traveling-mode, meaning he's insane all the time and can't focus or listen. At least I'm finally realizing that this always happens and it will pass in about a week. My house is gross, and I came back to 133 blog posts to read! Yikes! On the bright side, I finished ALL of the books and magazines I was reading - 32 hours in a car is a long time!

We did accomplish a lot of great learning before we headed off, so I'll try to list what I remember:

Phonics: Crumpet has been doing great with letter sounds, and we continued to practice this. Last night, I started writing out 3 letter words and showing him how to sound them out. I did a few, we worked on a few together, and then he read his first words on his own!! I'm so excited! I don't think he has any idea that he was doing it, but in a few weeks, the idea should click with him.

Storytelling: I bought a neat book at my favorite independent bookstore in Texas. It's called Imagine If... by Dr. Karen Halpern. It's just a collection of flip cards with pictures of characters, things and places. You choose one of each and make up a story. It's great for inspiring creativity!

Math:

-We read a fun book called Pattern Fish. I can't remember who wrote it... It was a cute story about some fish, all of which had different patterns and it challenged the reader to complete the patterns. Crumpet enjoyed this and figured out all the patterns.
-We did some easy addition and subtraction with M+Ms. I think Crumpet could do calculus if I could explain it with M+Ms! He loves learning experiences that involve chocolate.
-We played UNO for the first time, and he really enjoyed it.

-We played our grid game, but this time I wrote the numbers 1-6 randomly in the squares. Then we rolled a die and Crumpet stamped the appropriate number on the grid. I saw this idea at Tired, Need Sleep here.

Science: My plan was to learn a little bit about measurement. We did use a ruler and measuring tape to measure some things and talked about shorter and longer, but really, Crumpet wasn't interested.

We finished the 3 year old section of Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, and our last project was a study of shadows. We expanded on it and talked about our shadows and how they changed depending on time of day and where the sun is. First, we experimented by moving a flashlight to diffent positions around an action figure.

Then, we went outside at different times of day and saw how our shadows changed in length and position. We got a picture in the morning and at noon, but unfortunately, the sun was hiding in the evening.

Fine Motor Skills:

Crumpet practiced opening and closing a variety of lids on jars.

He did a lot of tracing in his Kumon book. He also did some shapes cutting and sorting using a great printable from Nicole at Tired, Need Sleep. I didn't take pictures, but you can find it here.

I made a bubble solution in cake pans and gave some straws and cookie cutters to Crumpet and the boy I babysit for. They played with this for 45 minutes! Awesome. I saw this idea here at

Almost Unschoolers.

Life Fun:
Crumpet decided to dress up and play witch for a while.

We played outside on a beautiful day, before it got nasty and cold again... Are we in Hawaii yet??