We were out late last night and at first Austin was too tired for school this morning so he rested on the new picnic table Dad made this weekend!

Gavin read his sight words.

Austin did manage to join us to match the big 'A' and baby 'a' apples to the apples on the tree.  He did a great job too!  When he did this same thing with 'E' and he was matching the peanuts I had to help him match the big and little letters correctly but today he didn't need any help at all!

Gavin read blends and blend ladders.  He practiced cursive letter 'm' and then did a page in his workbook identifying vowels.

Then we moved on to math.  We reviewed 4-ten and 2, 3-ten and 8, etc. on both the abacus and place value cards.

Here is Austin's finished apple tree!

Then we played a game.

This week we are learning about the moon.  In the morning during circle time one of the things we change periodically (once a week) are our moon phases.  Gavin really enjoys this!  I found some moon phases cards on a Montessori web site that we use (they were printable and free!) so we can 'watch' the moon as it changes through the month.  Today we learned why the moon looks differently each week.  We read a couple books about the moon and then went into the bathroom for our very own moon experiment.

I was the sun (with the flashlight), the styrofoam ball is the moon and Gavin's head is the Earth.  Here is the new moon.

This was the first quarter moon (at least it was before I moved the flashlight while taking a picture).

Full moon.

Crescent moon.

I think this is another crescent.

Today we read the story of Rebekah at the well in our Bible.

Then we read this version of it which was a more accurate story.

Here are the moon books we read.

Since Gavin has been enjoying Vikings so much we have decided to spend one more week on Vikings before moving on.  Today at lunch we started reading Black Fox of Lorne.  It hadn't been on my booklist because I thought it might be too hard for Gavin but we read the first chapter and he seems to be understanding it.  It's about Viking brothers so go a-Viking with their clan and crash into Scotland during a storm.  The Black Fox of Lorne is a Scottish man (who's name is Gavin) who helps them find their parents who were in another boat and so separated from the boys.