This was a really good school week with Crumpet. We only did 2 days of school, but they were full, fun days. It seems that if we get up and just jump right into it, we stay motivated and Crumpet just keeps asking for more. It helps if I have good plans too!

Science: I finally got around to doing some of the ice experiments that have been traveling around the blog world. I ended up just combining everything I'd seen into one great big project. First, I froze little toys in ice cubes, which I'd colored with food coloring. I saw this idea here at Monkeyin' Around. Crumpet had to guess what was in each cube before we melted them. Then we talked about the many ways to melt ice. We tried waiting, cold water, warm water, salt and talked about using the hair dryer but didn't actually do that. After we got tired of waiting and poured warm water on all of them, we mixed the leftover colored water together to see what colors we'd get, as seen at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, here. Crumpet did pretty well with remembering which colors would appear, since we've done similar experiments before.

Here is Crumpet guessing what's in the ice cube:
Then we tried something I found on a science website, somewhere, but I never wrote down the source. I froze water, liquid soap, vanilla pudding, and honey, and we talked about the different textures that resulted.

And yep, you guessed it, here is Crumpet eating the vanilla pudding cube...

Math: We found a cute book called Rabbit and Hare Divide an Apple

by Harriet Ziefert. It is a fun, easy introduction to fractions and Crumpet was quite interested in the concept. We practiced cutting up an apple and some bread into various equal portions.

For math, we also read a book called I.Q. It's Time by Mary Ann Fraser. This is a cute book about a mouse who goes to school and learns about the times that various things happen during the day. We used our teaching clock to set the times and follow the story. Crumpet can tell time to the hour when we are doing activities like this but it doesn't translate to real life yet - if I show him my watch, he can't tell me what time it is.

Geography: We received a wonderful package full of great fun and educational materials from Natalie and Anna over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. I had expressed great lust for her dollar globe from Target, and she happened to pick one up for me. I am so thrilled to have this now! Crumpet is too.

We used the globe quite a bit this week. I found a wonderful book called On Earth by G. Brian Karas. It is a pretty simple introduction to the motions of the Earth, and the reasons for day, night and the seasons. It was also Crumpet's first introduction to the idea of gravity. The whole book fascinated him, and it was so wonderful being able to demonstrate with the globe. We also looked up the geographic settings of many of the books we read.

Phonics: We also received a great letter Bingo game from Natalie and Anna, and we used this for our phonics practice this week. All of the cards have letters on them, and the clues involve guessing the beginning or ending sounds of words, or filling in blanks in the alphabet. This was lots of fun. We also reread the first book from Progressive Phonics and practiced reading some 3 letter words, but we can only do this in short bursts once a week or so, or Crumpet rebels. I'm taking it as it goes, and I know that he tends to do best when I let things ferment in his little head for a while. Someday, it will just click, and he'll read me the newspaper!

Fine Motor Skills:

I had Crumpet and a friend place golf tees in styrofoam boards and try to balance marbles on them. I saw this idea here at Confessions of a Homeschooler. Crumpet wasn't terribly interested in this project but his 2 year old friend spent ages doing it.

Household Skills:

We hadn't cooked together in ages, so when Crumpet asked to make chocolate custard (a treat we read about in The Pokey Little Puppy), I jumped at the chance. He measured and whisked and complained that the cooking took too long! The end product was just kind of eh, but Crumpet loved it. He loves all things chocolate.

Crafts: We made Valentines for the neighbors. I admit that I did a lot of the work on these, but he decorated the heads and helped with most of the glue work. I saw these in Our Big Backyard magazine and had to make them...

And, the big news here is that Crumpet seems to be potty trained!! At last. It was a rotten few weeks, and I had lots of nervous breakdowns, and Crumpet did a horrendous amount of screaming, but it's done! Hurray!

And after it all, we're still smiling. Here's my goofball:

A goofball who is suddenly very into his tools, and loves using Daddy's old toolbelt (which wraps twice around his waist!).

Have a wonderful week! We think we may finally get some of this snow everyone else is buried under, and I'm SO SO excited. I'm from the North, and I miss snow down here in Georgia. I'll post pictures if it really happens!