First up, the boys' poinsettia pictures from Monday...

Today Gavin read and practiced cursive handwriting.  Austin did a puzzle and then several worksheets.  I gave him the cow matching because he wanted to do 'school' and then he kept asking for another one so I gave him a worksheet where he circled the smallest object and then he did a shape/shadow matching worksheet.

Here is Gavin's handwriting page.  He is reviewing letters and learning how to put them together to form words.

For our '25 Days of Christmas' activity we made gingerbread cookies.  I cheated and bought Pillsbury dough which I rarely do but these cookies will be gifts for teachers and our '25 Days of Christmas' activity for Friday is to take some cookies to our local fire department as a thank you for keeping us safe and working through the holidays.  So we focused more on cutting and decorating then the actual mixing and cooking.  First we made some reindeer cookies, then the boys took turns cutting the dough with Christmas cookie cutters.

Gavin decorated the cookies.  I didn't let Austin because they were still hot.  He was disappointed but happy to watch Gavin and offer advice.

Here are the reindeer.

Hard to believe this is the last week of school until January!

Yesterday we read these books:

Today we will read this book.  We haven't actually had time yet but we will get to it!

In 'Boys of Grit' yesterday we read about Walter Scott (I had no idea he was lame) and today we read about Samuel Morse (I had no idea he was actually a painter).  Gavin seems to be really enjoying the stories even though some of the vocabulary is a little hard for him.  He gets the main story and we talk about the meanings of new words.

And, John Paul is officially a sailor now, although still a cabin boy.  We are enjoying this book as well!