This weekend we went to a family fun day at a local farm.  The boys really enjoyed watching a farmer and his dog herding ducks and sheep (not at the same time!).

The boys went through a hay maze.  They decided to wait and do the corn maze next year.

They got to pick out a pumpkin!

When we got home the boys put their pumpkins out on the front porch.  Then we decided that two little pumpkins looked lonely all by themselves so we got out the fall decorations.  I was going to wait until next weekend but it is officially fall now so I guess we aren't jumping the gun too much.  Since we got out the decorations for outside we figured we might as well get out the decorations that go inside too!  Then I made a couple of Halloween banners on my Cricut machine!  Here is the one in the living room:

This one is in the dining room.

This morning for school Austin made an "I for Iguana".  We hung it up next to our A crafts.

Gavin did a great job reviewing letters in cursive writing!

Austin and I worked a little bit with patterns.  I wanted to see if he could get simple patterns.  He did okay.  He needs some help but we will keep trying because I think he'll catch on quickly.

In math last week we looked at finding all the parts in the 'whole' for number 10.  This week we had our whole and one part and Gavin had to figure out the other part.  So we got out our circle mat.  I put a 10 at the top (the whole) and filled in one of the parts.  Gavin used his abacus to find the other part needed to make the whole.

Meanwhile, Austin was sorting his pegs by color.

Then we wrote what we were doing in equation form and Gavin filled in the missing part in the equation.

I found these little foam shapes in the dollar section at Target.  I love Target!  I should have picked up a second one but didn't.  Anyway, I thought they would be great for sorting by shape and color as well as for patterns.  I traced some of the shapes into simple patterns on a piece of paper.  Austin enjoyed putting the shape on the matching shape on the paper.  I worked with him a little bit to finish the pattern as well.

Gavin then finished the equations on a worksheet.

Today we learned about muscles (and still a little about bones since they work together).  We demonstrated a ball and socket joint using a plastic socket, a ping pong ball and a paper towel roll.  I got the socket and ball from the Magic School Bus Human Body Science Kit.  Then we put a little vegetable oil in the socket (like the fluid between the bones) to show how it makes it easier to spin the ball.

Gavin colored his muscles to stick in his body.  He colored very neatly!

Austin colored his muscles too!

Then we checked our chicken bones.  Gavin was able to bend them!  He was very excited about this!  He drew them in his science journal and wrote a couple sentences about his observations.

This is the Magic School Bus science kit we used.

We read these two books about muscles.

We finished Red Knight and now we are reading The Tale of Depereaux before bed.