Yesterday we took our first field trip to the park.  We went to the third and final program hosted by the conservation department.  This time we were exploring life in the stream.  We found water striders, frogs, minnows and assorted bugs.  I forgot to take my camera but since we were in the water and it sprinkled a little bit it was probably just as well.

The only school work Gavin did yesterday was he completed our bird bar graph.  We have been using tally marks to count the birds that come to our bird feeders.  I made a bar graph and Gavin filled it in using the information we obtained.

Today Gavin worked on his cursive writing and identifying the vowels he hears in words.  In math we learned even and odd numbers and worked on adding with tally marks.

In art we studied the painting, "The Birthday" by Marc Chagall.

We talked about how the artist used his imagination to show his feelings.

Then Gavin made his own painting.  He was supposed to paint an event and show how it made him feel but he drew a horse on a knight instead.  He did show feelings...his knight had a smile.  We used watercolor crayons for his painting.  First he drew his picture...

then he colored with the crayons and used water to mix the colors.

We started this book about Noah.  We will finish it tomorrow.

Austin and I read this book.  Austin didn't participate in school much this morning.

We read these books about space.  This week we have just had an overview of space.  The next couple of weeks we will learn about more specific aspects of space.

At lunch time we started reading Sally Ride's autobiography, To Space and Back.  It's easy to read and has great pictures!  A lot of the pictures were her personal pictures she took while she was in space.  It's written in a very conversational tone and she really describes what it's like to prepare for and to go to space.

We are still reading Swiss Family Robinson before bed.