Wild Animals

This morning we went to an event held by our local Parks & Rec Department.  It was at a gentleman's house just outside of town.  He has a goat, donkey, llama, camel and a dog that does tricks.  The boys had a good time.  Austin enjoyed seeing the animals but wouldn't go near them but Gavin petted the animals and fed the camel a couple slices of apple.

Here are the boys waiting for everyone to arrive so we could go back and see the animals.

The llama makes his appearance.

And then Joe the camel.

Gavin moved his hand so fast I didn't get a picture of him actually feeding the camel, but he had just given the camel a slice of apple.

This was the only time Austin got close to any of the animals.  He gave the donkey a slice of apple that had fallen to the ground.  The donkey was very grateful because no one was paying him any attention because the camel was standing over him (and he was a very small donkey!).

Austin was about to go pet the goat but the goat started talking and he decided he wasn't going to get near her after all.

And, most exciting for Austin because he LOVES geese, there was a goose family with five goslings there!  We watched the geese eating then they headed back for the pond.

We finally finished our bird unit today!!!!  Today we learned about migration by reading two books, one non-fiction and one fiction.

I love Lynne Cherry books.  They are always a good story with beautiful illustrations.  I met her once in Washington D.C. and she was very nice.  Anyway, we've read Flute's Journey many times before but since it's about the life of a wood thrush, and his migration to Costa Rica, we read it again.

Today the boys finished the bird nest craft they started yesterday. They added strips of brown construction paper to build the nest and turned a plastic Easter egg into a baby bird.

Here's the finished craft. Austin's is on the left and Gavin's is on the right.

When they finished their craft they played with Play Doh.

Today we read two books. This one was a true story about kids in a little town on the coast of Iceland. Apparently hundreds of puffins have their babies in the cliffs near the town. When the day comes for the babies to fly toward the ocean, some babies get confused by the lights of the town and fly toward the town instead of the water. Once they hit the ground they can't get back up. So, for two weeks while the pufflings are coming out of their nests (in holes in the cliffs) kids put stranded pufflings in boxes and release them back near the water. It was an interesting book. We noticed that the kids were wearing thick sweaters even though it's summer. After finding Iceland on the map we noticed it was close to the Arctic!
Gavin liked this book too. It's about a messenger pigeon in World War I that saved a bunch of soldiers. It has beautiful pictures.

We have one more day left of birds and we are done with our unit!

Dancing Artists

This morning Gavin and Austin spent some time dancing around the living room.

Then we got down to business! We read a little more about bird nests. This time we read about different kinds of nests like cup nests, mound nests, hanging nests, etc. We started a craft that we will finish tomorrow. Today just consisted of painting a paper plate brown. Not super exciting.

Here in a month or two I will post about our kindergarten plans. I have been planning Gavin's kindergarten and trying to come up with ways to include Austin as much as possible because I know he will not want to be left out! Anyway, I made these two charts on my handy Cricut machine today. The first one is just a check off for Gavin so he can put a star under each subject he completes each day. I used velcro to attach the subject pictures and the stars. This way I can change the subjects as needed.

Right now Gavin's chore chart is more a habits chart but I want him to have certain things done before school starts and I don't want to have to remind him every morning. So, this is my attempt at getting him to be responsible for himself. We'll see how it goes! Anyway, again, I attached picture clues for the things he needs to do with velcro so once they are habits I can put on new pictures and make it an actual chore chart.

So, he is supposed to make his bed, brush his teeth, wash his face, get dressed and eat breakfast before school starts. I put play violin on there because he will be responsible for making sure he practices at least twice a week. I also put feed the dogs because it's really the only chore he has to do every day right now. He does lots of things around the house but they are once or twice a week type chores.

Here are the books we read today. Stellaluna really has nothing to do with nests I just like the story. Stellaluna is a baby bat that ends up falling into a birds' nest and tries to act like a baby bird.

This is a cute book about a grandfather and granddaughter going birdwatching together. Gavin thought it was funny.

We finished Happy Jack the Squirrel. I asked Gavin if he wanted to start a new knight book I got but he said he wanted to read another from the Thornton Burgess series. So today we started Grandfather Frog. I'm going to have to see if I can get some more books by this author.
We have four chapters left of The Trumpet of the Swan.

Easter

We went to the 7:30 service at church today so we got up really early! Austin wasn't quite sure why anyone would get up when it's still dark outside and it took him a few minutes to adjust. The Easter basket helped!

Gavin was thrilled with his bird feeder! He kept saying, "I've been wanting a bird feeder. Now I can help the birds!" Of course, at first he thought it was a candy dispenser.

Austin seemed to like taking his rabbits in and out of the rabbit hutch.

Here's the boys all dressed up and ready for church. They looked very handsome! Gavin has Easter bunnies and eggs on his tie.

Since we went to church so early, our egg hunt had to wait until after church. Gavin didn't mind and our eggs were still in the backyard when we got home.

Austin figured out what he was supposed to do quickly and got to it. He found lots of eggs. He wanted to stop and open each one he found but Gavin was very nice and stayed close by instead of going ahead.

And then it was finished.
That's been our Easter!