Preschool Week of 7/16

Wow, we've only been here 1 1/2 months, and I already feel like my schedule is over-full. I swore I wouldn't do this to us, but I just like to be busy. I can't figure out when to squeeze in school time or cleaning or cooking though. This week, we went to the library story hour and an animatronic dinosaur display at the mall, I had a medical appointiment, and we are always out exploring the island from morning til night on the weekends when my husband is home. That's five mornings of the week, full. When we get home, we're tired and it's hard to get Crumpet into school mode... I have some life tweaking to do...

Still, we did do some home learning.

Science: We studied the solar system this week. We completed the McRuffy science unit on things in the sky. We read a book I got on sale at Borders which had good, brief descriptions of the things in our solar system, as well as a mobile to put together. Here, we laid out the planets in order:
We also read The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System. This book introduced the asteroid belt, and also talked about gas vs. solid planets. So we had a quick talk about states of matter. We also made a cloud, using an experiment I found on Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn, here. Crumpet LOVED this experiment and took off running to get the camera, so here is a shot he took. It shows the cloud condensing just before it started to rain. Crumpet made me do this experiment twice.
Coincidentally, the library story hour theme this week was Outer Space. We were greeted by a green faced martian at the door, and the kids made UFOs with little aliens for their craft project.
Field Trips: Our mall puts on a summer long kid event. This year, it is an animatronic dinosaur display, with a train ride through the area. Crumpet is all about dinos right now, so he really enjoyed it. It was our first trip to the mall, and the fact that it has a monorail connecting its two locations was a big bonus! Lots of train rides this week.
At the mall, we completed a 3D stegosaurus puzzle. We also did a fossil dig and a dinosaur rubbing.
And sat on a triceratops.
Language: I brought out our phonemic awareness box from a few weeks ago, and Crumpet was really into it this time. We answered the questions on all 50 cards. Some of the cards introduced the topic of syllables, which was new to Crumpet.
Math: Crumpet was introduced to the concept of 3D shapes in his McRuffy math book. We searched the house for specific shapes and also made the shapes out of playdoh. Crumpet is also getting better at counting groups of things from left to right and top to bottom. Before, he counted randomly, and invariably missed something or counted something twice.
Geography: We read Greetings from Kiwi and Pear which was recommended by Natalie at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. This is a cute book about 2 little monkeys doing a trip around the world. It briefly touches on many countries, and comes with a map and reusable stickers, so kids can follow along with the story. I asked Crumpet to choose a country to focus on next week, and he picked France. He loved the picture of the Eiffel tower in this book.
Spanish: Last week, I wrote about the fact that Crumpet won't actually speak Spanish for me, so I don't know how much he's learning. I mentioned it to my husband that night, and he said "Oh, Crumpet counted in Spanish for me just this morning." So, it seems the little turkey is in fact learning... I found an easy Spanish curriculum set at the library this week, and it looks like a good fit for us. Lots of games and songs, and it introduces the very basic Spanish we'd like to start with. It's called Spanish for Children, and it's by McGraw Hill. Does anyone have any experience with it? Any pros or cons?
Nature: We went on a really beautiful hike to Maunawili Falls last weekend. It's 3 miles round trip, and Crumpet didn't complain once. At the end of the hike, there is a beautiful little waterfall that you can swim under.


But it was COLD. Look at his little frozen face!
Have a great week! For more preschool fun, head over to Homeschool Creations!
(Aack, just discovered that some of my links still aren't working. I'm sorry...)