Geography Studies - Mexico

We're using our geography studies to explore the Spanish speaking countries of the world right now, and this week we visited Mexico! We had a really good time with it.
We got a quick overview by looking at the website Mexico For Kids. This is a really cute site put together by a class of second graders learning Spanish. We looked at the Mexican flag and talked about the legend that led to the design. We read the Mexico section in Children Just Like Me, and we read Look What Came From Mexico.
I pulled a couple of crafts out of Mexico: 40 Activities to Experience Mexico Past and Present by Susan Milford. This is an awesome book, with lots of educational information. I can't wait to use it again when Crumpet is a bit older and ready to go further in depth with our geography studies!
We created some yarn art. I drew the butterfly outline and Crumpet painted on some watered down glue. Then he placed yarn over the glue. He really enjoyed this, as well as our other crafts of the week. Hurray!
We talked about the Mayans a little and built a step pyramid out of Legos.
We played our castanets and maracas.
We also read the book Hill of Fire by Thomas P. Lewis. This is the true story of a man witnessing the birth of a volcano in his field in Mexico. There are lots of pictures of daily life in Mexico. Crumpet was fascinated by the volcano, as I knew he would be.
Today happens to be the Day of the Dead, which is a day for remembering and celebrating loved ones who have passed away. Most of the books we were able to reserve at the library were about this festival, and Crumpet was excited about all of the skeleton and ghost decor that goes along with the celebrations. It took some effort to convince him that this is actually a nice holiday, and not something spooky like Halloween. Mostly, we made a lot of crafts for the day, and we talked about Crumpet's Nanny, who passed away in January. I've decided that this is a lovely holiday, and we need to celebrate it every year - it was nice to remember and talk about the people we miss.
We made this cute, wiggly skeleton. The marigolds on him are the flower of the dead:

We made cute ghost necklaces out of glue. You make a ghost shape using glue on wax paper, add eyes, and a paper clip for a hanger, and let it dry for a couple of days. Then peel of your ghost and draw in a mouth! These were also perfect for Halloween.
We always eat a lot of Mexican food here, so Crumpet is familiar with the cuisine. We did bake polvorones, which are Mexican sugar cookies with cinnamon in them, for the first time. We made them in Halloween shapes for a dinner gathering we had. The cookies disappeared in minutes!
We read several books about the Day of the Dead. The best was probably The Spirit of Tio Fernando by Janice Levy. This is a book about a little boy learning how to celebrate the holiday while remembering a favorite uncle, and is written in both English and Spanish.

Jolanthe, at Homeschool Creations, has an excellent post on Mexico studies, with lots of great links. You can check that out here.

I know we tend to jump around a lot, and we don't go very in depth with our geography studies yet. For now, I have 3 purposes for our geography work:
1) To have fun!! This is the time when we do most of our crafts and baking together.
2) To teach Crumpet that there are many, many other cultures in the world and that it's important to accept and learn from our differences from others. And that those differences are what make life so interesting!
3) To inspire a love of travel and exploration in Crumpet.

For more Geography posts, visit Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn!

Geography - Spain

I've decided to take Crumpet on a tour of the Spanish speaking countries of the world. I want him to see how widespread the language is, and to get an idea of how useful it would be to speak Spanish. First, I printed a world map and colored all of the Spanish speaking countries red. Then, we started our travels with Spain.
We looked through the overview book Spain: Enchantment of the World by Lura Rogers. We also wandered through the Spain section of the great website:KidsKonnect.com. There is a huge amount of information here. I showed Crumpet videos on YouTube that I thought would entertain him: one of flamenco dancing and some of La Tomatina, which is a crazy tomato festival in Bunol, Spain which ends up as a huge tomato fight and streets flooded with tomato sauce.
We read The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf again. Then we made our own little bull from a template at DLTK here:
We read a really great book about the Great Mosque of Cordoba. The Most Magnificent Mosque by Ann Jungman is a wonderful story about people of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths working together to save the mosque from destruction.
We made tortilla de patatas for dinner. This was one of my favorite meals in Spain, but it was vetoed by everyone in my house except me. But I'll eat anything... Then we had churros con chocolate for dessert. This was a big hit with my chocoholic child. And me, but I'll eat anything, especially chocolate.
We talked about 2 Spanish artists. Gaudi has been one of my absolute favorite artists since a visit to Barcelona years ago. His work is all over the city, and it covers a huge range of styles. I love this lizard in the Parc Guell:
We jumped from here to talking about mosaics, and I thought we could make our own mosaic art. I found these great sealife squares for making mosaics and I've been so excited to use them. What child doesn't like to cover himself in glue and just make a big hodge podge of colors?? Mine, it seems. He thought this was terrible cruelty and no art was created...
We also talked about Salvador Dali, because we found this great book: Dali and the Path of Dreams by Anna Obiols. This is a really neat book about dreams Dali had as a child which led to his crazy paintings in later life. Really fun, and the artwork in the book is great.

Lastly, we talked about Christopher Columbus and his journey to America from Spain. I did not plan for this to coincide with Columbus Day, but it was nice that it did! We read the book Columbus Day by Christina Mia Gardeski, which was written at the perfect level for Crumpet. It covers lots of details in an easy to understand manner.
Overall, this was a fun, quick introduction to Spain. It did not magically spark Crumpet's interest in speaking Spanish, and I think I'm going to put away the language program for a little while. He is flat out refusing to participate. We will continue our travels to Spanish speaking countries though. Next up, Mexico!
For more geography and history posts, visit Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Preschool Week of 10/8

It has been a busy, busy week here. I'm doing what I can to keep us occupied so that we don't miss Daddy too much. So far, so good. Here's a quick summary of our week:
Saturday, we went to a trial karate class, which Crumpet decided he does not want to join. In the afternoon, we went to a birthday party for one of the girls in his preschool class.
Sunday, we went to the zoo with several friends, and then had dinner with other friends. One of those friends spent the night at our house. It looks like she'll be moving into our house for a week or two because her husband is away for training and she's not used to being alone. That is a theme that will be repeated here frequently over the next few months- it looks like we are about to become Hotel Crumpet for young newlyweds not accustomed to the Navy life. We are happy to have the company and to help people adjust - this is not an easy life. Crumpet is excited to have new people to play Star Wars with... Poor, poor visitors don't know what they are getting into!!
Monday, Crumpet woke up vomiting. Again. Sigh, school is good for the social education that Crumpet so desperately needs, but I'm really tired of the repeated illnesses...
Thursday, we went to the beach, AND we saw the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean, which they are filming here. Very cool! My pictures are awful because the light was wrong but here are a few:


As for school at home, that went well this week, too.
Reading: We've started the new Progressive Phonics section, which introduces blends. Yay, words with more than 3 letters at last! McRuffy has started introducing a lot of reading comprehension, and we started spelling this week. I was worried about Crumpet's reaction to spelling, but he whizzed through it.
Math:McRuffy introduced addition story problems. I was really excited to see these. I always loved them, but know so many people who panicked at the mere mention of 'word problem'. I'm glad to see them introduced so early so the horror can hopefully be avoided, and they will just be a fact of life for Crumpet.
History: We are reading Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill. This is sort of a shorter Little House on the Prairie, and it's a good introduction to what things were like in America long ago.
Geography: I have been planning to start doing units on the Spanish speaking countries of the world. I'm hoping Crumpet will see how many people speak Spanish and how useful this language could be for him. I've gathered materials and made plans for weeks, but never had the time to start. This week, we finally started with Spain. I'll do a post about it soon. Really. I hope.
Science: We finally got around to doing a couple of fun experiments I've seen around the blog world. We cleaned a penny with coke, and we made raisins dance in Sprite. The raisins were really fun. (I'm trying to get rid of the soda my husband left in the house!!)
Life Skills: We have started a chore routine similar to Jolanthe's at Homeschool Creations. It is working incredibly well so far. Crumpet knows which things he must do every day no matter what, and we've had no trouble getting the toys cleaned up, the teeth brushed, or the bed made in weeks. Most days, he does additional chores to earn money, and he has managed to save enough to buy himself several small toys. He's very proud, and I'm hoping that he will realize money isn't easy to come by. He definitely has stopped begging for everything he sees when we are in the store...
Have a great week! For more preschool posts, visit Homeschool Creations!

Geography Studies - Mount Everest

A few weeks ago, Crumpet saw a segment on PBS about Jordan Romero, a 13 year old boy who climbed Mount Everest. Crumpet decided he was going to climb mountains too, so I created a unit about Mt. Everest.

Apparently, Jordan Romero saw an exhibit about the Seven Summits Challenge. Serious mountain climbers try to climb the highest mountain on each continent, and Jordan decided he would like to try it. So far, he has climbed 6 of the mountains (he hasn't been to Antarctica yet). I took this opportunity to talk to Crumpet about the continents, and we marked the mountains on a world map.

Books we read for this study:
Mount Everest by Sarah De Capua : This was a great introduction to mountains and to Mount Everest for someone Crumpet's age. Very simple but it covered a lot of information.
Everest, a DK Eyewitness Book: This had beautiful pictures. We used it to check out the gear a mountain climber would have.
To the Top by S.A. Kramer: This was a biography of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first two people to reach the summit of Everest. It was written for kids, and Crumpet and I both enjoyed it.
We also watched a National Geographic Movie: Everest 50 Years on the Mountain : Crumpet actually sat through most of this movie, and it gave us a great idea of what it's really like to be on Everest (NOT fun!!). It was filmed with the sons of Norgay and Hillary, and it was interesting to hear their memories. The movie skips back and forth through history though, which was a bit confusing for Crumpet.

We did a little research about the animals and plants that live on Mount Everest and then Crumpet painted this picture of the mountain:
The bottom line is the tree line. Trees grow below this line, and there are lots of plants and animals. Above that, there are fewer animals and the ground cover is mostly moss and lichen. The snow line is at the top. The snow never melts here, and no one lives above this line.

After painting, we decided to climb Mount Everest ourselves. We packed a bag full of dried foods (I reminded Crumpet of our dried food experiments and the reasons it would be important to bring it on our climb). We brought climbing ropes, a tent, a sleeping bag, and "oxygen" tanks. We no longer own hats or mittens (sigh, our life is rough :) and oddly, Crumpet refused to put on 8 layers of clothes, so imagine that he's all bundled up in these pictures, with big spiky boots on!
Here he is, setting off for base camp:
We had to beware of the "Yeti" on the mountain... This poor cat is so abused - Crumpet spent a lot of time trying to scare the "Yeti" away. She just ignored us, as usual.
Stringing ropes to help us cross the crevasses.
Camp #2 being set up:
At last, we reached the summit!
We narrowly escaped the Yeti, avalanches, and oxygen deprivation, but we made it. And we had a blast. Every day, Crumpet asks to play Everest again. I LOVE homeschooling!
For more geography posts, visit Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn.

Geography studies - England

This week, we toured England for our geography studies. Crumpet was born near Cambridge, England, so I enjoy talking to him about his birthplace. I hope that someday he'll want to visit it so I can go back!
The best resource we found for this study was the website Project Britain. If you want to know something about England, it's there. I could have navigated around all day and kept coming up with more fun information. We took the armchair tour around England and then just looked at a lot of great pictures.
We also talked about the difference between England and Great Britain, and discussed the monarchy a bit. We read the book Look What Came From England. We read A Bear Called Paddington.

Then we made this cute English bobby (police officer) from DLTK here. Crumpet is all about being a police officer right now so he liked this. We just glued the clothes on the paper doll.
Here is a much younger Crumpet in his own English bobby outfit which was given to us a by a friend stationed in England at the same time. He refused to put it on this week, even though he still wears it often.
We made... CRUMPETS. We didn't know if Crumpet would be a boy or girl when I was pregnant with him, so we called him Crumpet until he was born. So of course, we had to try a recipe.I added whipped cream and strawberries. I loved them. Crumpet liked them "because of the whipped cream". I did add sugar to the whipped cream, which the British don't do, but I figured Crumept wouldn't touch it otherwise!
Then, we took a look at Stonehenge (thanks to Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom!). We went to Stonehenge:With a teeny tiny 4 week old Crumpet - see the white hood between hubby and me? That's baby Crumpet. Sadly, he doesn't remember this trip.
And did you know that just down the road from Stonehenge is a place called Woodhenge? It was apparently built on the same principles during prehistoric times and used to have very tall posts. Now it is marked with smaller posts (the original wood didn't last quite as well as the giant stones).
I showed Crumpet all of our pictures and started building Stonehenge with Jenga blocks. He also decided to build Woodhenge with Unifix blocks. Then he added a totem pole...(wrong time and place?!) And then he blew them all up with Star Wars ships. It's no Act of God, but I thought it was funny that all boys must blow up Stonehenge...
Just for fun, did you know about Foamhenge in Virginia? My husband and I were driving through the countryside on our way to go camping. We both saw this out of the corner of our eyes:
We didn't say anything for a minute, and then we looked at each other, saying 'Um, did you see Stonehenge?' We were really hoping we hadn't lost our minds. Turns out, we both saw it, so we turned around to check it out. It looks just like the real thing... It was so odd to see it out in the fields of Virginia...

Geography - France

Two weeks ago, Crumpet asked to learn more about France because he was intrigued by the Eiffel Tower. I finally pulled a few things together, and we spent yesterday 'touring' France. First, we read through a few library books about France. We saw pictures of different areas of the country, looked at a few famous French works of art, and I spoke a little (rusty) French. Then, we had fun.
Crumpet colored the French flag. As you can see, he could care less about coloring...
We saw pictures of stained glass in French cathedrals, and attempted to make our own. We grated crayons and then ironed them between two sheets of wax paper. I think we should have used fewer dark colors! And maybe Mom should have ironed so there would be fewer wrinkles...Still, Crumpet loves his work of art. (Warning:the crayon ruins everything it touches.)
We made a folded paper Eiffel Tower. Crumpet is delighted with it.
Then I went all out (not...) and made chocolate croissants to gobble up while we watched the movie The Red Balloon. This is a very sweet movie that I remember watching in French class many years ago (Warning: there are bullies in the movie but they fail in the end.)
For more posts about Geography and History, visit Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

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!