What is THAT on the counter???

Wanna know what this gross stuff is?


My husband sure did when he found it on our kitchen counter! It's paper pulp! We made our own paper this week from old newspaper. It was a science project I found a while back on the Scientific American website, but it fit in really well with our history study about early writing. We talked about writing on stone, clay, and finally papyrus.
We shredded newspaper and put it in the blender with some water. Then we spread it out and let it dry. It actually dries into a nice thin layer that you can sort of write on. (Please ignore Crumpet's less-than-happy face. He got a bit tired of being my model during the photography class!)
So, we still like history. Science is also going really well. We have actually flown through Nebel's book... I only meant to do 20 of the 40 lessons this year. We have already done 10, so I thought I'd start spacing it out and doing monthly lessons. However, Crumpet is asking to do more science, so that's not going to work. I'm afraid that if we get too far into the book, the concepts will be beyond him. I guess we'll just plow through until he gets confused, and then find another science program to keep us busy until next year, when we can pick up Nebel again.
Writing has suddenly become Crumpet's first choice subject every day! He is very very proud of the fact that he can make letters and numbers! Hurray!
I'm hoping to have the same breakthrough with spelling soon. I learned yesterday that I can put the spelling words into sentences about Star Wars. He spells the whole sentence, and the idea of writing his own Star Wars stories soon is huge motivation... I'm thinking it will be great for handwriting practice too. He can spell the sentence, I'll write it, and then he can copy it!
Reading is going well. He still hates Explode the Code worksheets, but when he's reading, I can see him automatically applying the phonics rules he's learning.
Math is math. It's going well. We just started working on minutes on clocks though, and that has him a bit confused. I think it will click as we work more with the topic.
There really hasn't been much else going on here. LOTS of Lego Star Wars on the XBox. My hubby bought it to keep them busy together while he was home recovering from surgery. I'm hoping to cut the play time drastically when Crumpet Sr. goes back to work next week. I've been going out on my own a lot while hubby was home too. It's been nice! But back to normal next week, and that will be nice too.
I tried to teach Crumpet to play tennis this week. I'll leave you with a picture of his favorite part of the experience - wearing the racket cover on his head. Of course...