This week we have finally started the Civil War, much to Gavin's excitement.  First we read a little background and about Fort Sumter in a book called American History Stories by Mara Pratt.  We will be reading through this book because it goes through the entire war, each chapter is only 3-5 pages long, and it highlights both battles and events, as well as specific stories about soldiers and life of a soldier in a story format.

 

We also used (and will continue to use) this book about battles (Gavin said this was his favorite book).

We read this book about Fort Sumter.

We are also reading poems from this book...a great find, it has poems people wrote before, during and after the war.

After we completed our reading, Gavin colored in the Confederate states and Union states on a map.

Then he traced the battle of Fort Sumter on a piece of tracing paper.

Here's what we ended up with.  The big 'U' under Fort Sumter stands for Union.  We put a 'C' near the Confederate controlled islands.

Adelaide is spending a lot of time on her feet now.  Today she even took just a couple steps to reach something!

Monday and Tuesday Gavin worked on finding perimeter of a rectangle and he learned that P = s + s + s + s.  Yesterday I told him he had to figure out what the sides were of a rectangle that's perimeter is 16.  He had some trouble with this so we got out the math balance so he could figure it out.  It was still a little tricky remembering that the number had to have a pair because it was a rectangle (if you have one 4 you have to have another because two sides are the same length).  You can tell he's not having much fun in this picture!

Then he drew a diagonal line on some rectangles I had cut out of a piece of construction paper.  Then he measured the diagonal line, wrote down the answer, measured the sides of the rectangle and found the perimeter but plugging it into the equation.  This was a little easier.

Yesterday we continued learning about France.  We have been using Amanda Bennett's Download and Go France curriculum and we really enjoy it.  She has lots of great links to YouTube videos that show the sites around France and some that talk about things like how they make cheese, etc.  We read some more from Bo and about Rachel from France.

For our French meal we made sole with lemon cream sauce.  I don't usually make sauces so I was a little nervous about this one but it turned out really good.  Of course, the sauce was butter, heavy cream and lemon juice.  How on earth are French people so skinny?  Anyway, the boys both ate the fish right up (which is saying a lot for Austin because he won't eat anything right now).  We served it with green beans and baguette.  Gavin said it was 'awesome' and both boys cheered when I told them we were having a French meal so I think they are really liking the French food!

 

Since Gavin struggled a bit yesterday in math we did the same thing today and it went much better.  He didn't have any trouble with it and was feeling much more confident.  He still used the math balance but he was able to figure out the sides when I told him what the perimeter had to be.

Then he did the rectangles again (he did three yesterday and three today).  Here's what it looked like if you can read his chicken scratch.  It says D=7 3/4 and has the measurements of the outside of the rectangle.

Then he turned it over and found the perimeter.  He is basically learning a simple equation.

Today Adelaide discovered the play kitchen!

Yesterday we went on a tour of a local television station with Gavin's Cub Scout troop.  It was really interesting and the kids enjoyed it even though none of them really watch the news.  They liked seeing where they filmed the news and all the cameras and equipment.  They also learned a little bit about how news stories make it to the evening news and how it is filmed.