Preschool Week of 8/27

This week, Parent Participation Preschool went really well! Crumpet was signed up to be "line leader" on Wednesday. I thought that would freak him out and he'd refuse to get up in front of the class. Nope. It seems he likes power. He was so excited all week. On Monday, he agreed to go to school so he could watch that day's line leader and be sure he knew what all of his duties would be. On Wednesday, he started begging to go to school 2 hours earlier than we usually leave. He fulfilled his duties as line leader perfectly, and even spent a lot more time interacting with the other kids than usual. I'm hoping that this helped us turn a corner, and now he'll enjoy school??

Home preschool also went well.
Reading/Phonics: This is going relatively well. He is getting quicker about reading words and has no trouble with our phonics curriculum. He doesn't like to work hard though, so often he just tells me he doesn't know the words and tries to refuse to read with me... I'm not letting him get away with it.

Math: This is going well too, but Crumpet hates repetition. Once he knows something, I'd better not ask any more questions or he gets really annoyed (he's an ornery little thing...). There was a lot of number line work this week, and the book was driving him nuts. I set up a walkable number line and gave him an arrow to point out his answers. This, along with me skipping a lot of the book's questions, made things a bit better. (He's wearing half of a storm trooper costume...)
For math, we also tried out the Dreambox website which I read about over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. Sadly, it didn't go over as well here. The games are pretty repetitive, and as I said, that makes Crumpet bonkers. Also, there is a lot of work with a ten frame and a math rack, two tools I'd never used before. It seems Crumpet's and my brains just don't work this way. It took me a while to figure out what this was all about (I get it now and it's cool, but not how I think) and Crumpet couldn't grasp it. I will probably try again in the future because they seem like good teaching tools.
Science/Geography: A few weeks ago, I was trying to teach Crumpet something, and he said "Mom, I already know this stuff. What I really need to know more about are rays." He loves manta rays, stingrays, etc. So I reserved every book the library had on rays and rented the movie Under the Sea:IMAX. We went through them all this week, and he loved learning more about this interesting animal. The movie was beautiful too. There was a bit too much predator action for Crumpet though. He thinks all creatures should be vegetarians... As part of our look at oceans, we found the world's oceans on the globe and added them to our flat world map which we used to learn about the continents last week.
For culture studies, we read People by Peter Spier . This book is in the Sonlight curriculum, and I almost bought it, but have been lucky enough to find it at several libraries. We read through it every once in a while. It's a wonderful book explaining that people everywhere are different in many ways, but that we should all respect the differences. There are pictures of clothing, houses, games, food, and religion from many different cultures. Crumpet was much more interested in the book this time than ever before. He's just beginning to notice differences in people.

Other:
Crumpet put together a couple of 24 piece puzzles with little help this week. Usually he struggles with puzzles and isn't a big fan, but he did great this time. Maybe it's just time for him?
I found these cute finger puppets in the craft section at Target. Crumpet never liked lacing activities, but I was hoping that he would enjoy this because there was a purpose to the sewing. He loved it, and managed to sew both puppets pretty much on his own. Great fine motor practice!

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