This morning Gavin finished counting to 1000 by 10s.

Today we got out the math balance for the first time.  Gavin was really excited about this for some reason!  Basically, one side has to equal the other for it to balance.  So we put a weight on the 10 on one side, then used two weights to balance the other side, like 6+4 and 2+8, then we did the same thing with three weights, like 2+3+5.  We talked about how it was just another way to make equations.

Then we practiced 'trading' on our abacus.  Gavin drew numbers from a deck of cards and then added them on the back of his abacus.  When he got 10 ones he traded for 1 ten, when he got 10 tens he traded for 1 hundred and so on.  Yesterday we did this to find out how many days there are in a year by adding the days in each month together.

Yesterday we started reading about plants and did a simple experiment to 'see' chlorophyll.  Gavin picked a green leaf from outside and we put it in a bowl with alcohol.  The alcohol drew out the chlorophyll and turned green while the leaf turned yellow.  Gavin drew the before and after in his science journal.

In other news, Adelaide is two months old today!

Yesterday we read a book about Georgia O'Keefe and then Gavin was supposed to make an O'Keefe-style picture using a flower from our garden.  He made a very nice picture but it was not O'Keefe inspired so today he tried again and he did a great job.

Here is his orange flower with pastel background.

This is the flower he was drawing.  I think he did a good job!

This is the book we ready yesterday.  We also read part of an old book called "The First Book of Plants".  It's an ebook I got for free.

Today we read this book about Lewis and Clark.

And several chapters of this book which the boys really love.  It has beautiful pictures in it.