Preschool Week of 8/13

This week went quite well. I'll regret saying this, but it feels like we've finally found our groove here. We have a routine, and it's beginning to feel like we really live here and this is real life (and how lucky are we that Hawaii is real life??). So here's our weekly wrap up:

Preschool: I had fun at the co-op preschool this week, but Crumpet has decided he's done with it. Each morning he threw a fit, and we almost had to leave Wednesday. This is standard Crumpet, and we'll just have to keep trying until one day, he wakes up and realizes he likes it. Nothing social is ever easy with him. We will get there though... This week's theme at the school was the colors of the rainbow.

Fortunately, he loves our lessons at home and gets angry on weekends if I have nothing prepared. Here's some of what we did at home:
Math:
Our McRuffy unit was about identifying and naming patterns (AB, ABB, etc). I thought this seemed a bit advanced, but it's listed on the kindergarten readiness chart that the preschool teacher gave us. I broke one lesson into 3 parts and taught it very slowly. In the end, Crumpet was annoyed because he had it figured out at the end of the first day, and he didn't want to keep trudging through. Oops.
We also worked with these cool number family sheets. I think I found them at Confessions of a Homeschooler but now I can't find them. Darn it - I'm usually better about keeping track of these things... If you saw them too, will you tell me where? Anyway, Crumpet has been working really hard at counting to high numbers (he's constantly saying "Hey Mom, what comes after 34?etc.), but he still gets stuck a lot, so I thought this would be a great way to visualize the pattern the numbers make. He really likes this chart, and I made the travel one, too.
Science:A few weeks ago, we saw some oil floating on top of the water at the USS Arizona Memorial. We discussed the fact that oil and water don't mix. I finally got around to do ing the liquid fireworks experiment that I saw at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns here. Crumpet LOVED this experiment, and I heard "Again, again!" a million times.
We also did some experiments with dish soap, and I'll write a science post about those.

Geography: We took a virtual trip to England this week. I'll write a separate post about that.
Phonics:I pulled out our Progressive Phonics stories to see if Crumpet is ready for them yet. He did really well working through the first few books, and the concept of putting sounds together to makes words seems to be clicking with him. We also used Starfall one morning and he enjoyed that.
Writing:I tried a roll and color game from here to see if Crumpet would put any more effort into coloring properly when it was presented differently. He did a bit better, but still hated every minute of it.
I discovered dry erase crayons this week. I LOVE these. They don't dry out, and the box came with an eraser mitt that works quite well. :)
Nature/More Science:
Our garden is doing great, and we harvested our first cherry tomatoes this week. Poor Crumpet was excited that we were picking vegetables, but he can't stand tomatoes so he did not partake of the harvest. Other veggies he does like will be ready soon...
That's it for our week. For more preschool posts, visit Homeschool Creations!