Adelaide is ready for Thanksgiving!

 

She's still trying to figure out the walking thing.  She is also trying to push the buttons on this ride on car.  I should probably put some batteries in it!

Yesterday Gavin worked some more on math strategies and then we played addition war.  Have I mentioned he really likes playing math games?

He's in an undershirt because I made him wear a sweater and he always complains about being hot when I make him wear sweaters (Austin does the same thing).  I like boys in sweaters though so I keep making them wear them anyway!

 

Since we finished with France, Gavin opened the next package from Little Passports.  He went through the side rather than the top...

I think you can tell by the look on his face that they redeemed themselves this month.  Last month they just sent us a poster for France, this month they sent...

a pyramid excavation kit.  Basically you get to be an archaeologist and 'dig' through the pyramid to find a prize hidden inside.  He was very excited!  He did this when we learned about dinosaurs (except it was a dinosaur egg) last year and he was really excited to do it again.

Then he completed a puzzle using hieroglyphics.

Austin thought the excavation kit was awesome too.  (He is also in is undershirt because I made him wear a sweater yesterday too!)

Speaking of Austin, he has been putting stickers all over the house, so I stapled some paper together and made him a sticker book.  Hopefully that will help solve the problem.

Gavin traced a map of Egypt with major landmarks and cities.

Then he finally got to work on the pyramid.

All of the sudden, the sweater didn't seem like such a bad idea anymore!

For some reason he thought he would go in through the bottom, but a pyramid is hard to balance when you turn it upside down, so he had Austin hold it steady for him.

And, he got, some sort of sphinx looking thing.

We read this book about Egypt.

We took some time out of the battle scenes yesterday to read about what was going on at home while the men were off fighting in the Civil War.  We read a few stories about the women and children in this book.

And then we read more about it in these books.

 

This morning we reviewed another math strategy, finding doubles.  For example, for 5 + 6, you know that 5 + 5 = 10 and then you add the one because 6 is 5 and 1.  He then found all the doubles on his math table he completed earlier and found out that the answers are always even because odd + odd = even and even + even = even.  Then he found the near doubles and found they are always odd because even + odd = odd.

 

Today Gavin started ocean habitat.  We read a couple books about oceans and then did an experiment to find out more about the differences between fresh water and salt water.  Is it inappropriate that our experiment used whiskey glasses and shot glasses?  I needed clear, small glasses and they are what I could find.  Strange since we don't drink whiskey or do shots but they worked well for our experiment.  Anyway, first Gavin filled two glasses with water, then he added salt to one of the glasses and stirred it until the salt dissolved into the water.

 

Then Gavin put a little of each glass into a smaller glass and added food coloring so he could see it.  Then Gavin added the small glass of fresh water into the bigger glass of salt water.

He noticed that the fresh water stayed closer to the top of the salt water and drew his findings in his science journal.

Then he added salt water to the fresh water.

He noticed that the salt water sunk to the bottom of the glass.

Then he recorded this finding in his science journal. 

Finally, we poured two tablespoons of salt water and two tablespoons of fresh water into glasses and put them on the balance.  Gavin's guess that the salt water would be heavier than the fresh water was proven correct.  He added this to his science journal.  Then we talked about density and he recorded the definition of density into his science vocabulary notebook.

Austin was painting but he decided he wanted to come check out our experiment after all (he had been invited at the beginning).

We read these books about oceans.

We didn't finish this book but will finish it next week.

And, we loved the Thornton Burgess Animal Book and the Thornton Burgess Bird Book, so now the boys are super excited that we are reading the Thornton Burgess Seashore Book during lunch.

I think I haven't updated our new poem, verses, etc. for November yet this month.  Our Bible verses are Matthew 5:2-12.   It's the Beatitudes, which I'm not going to copy since everyone probably already knows them!  Our composer is Edvard Greig and our artist is Rembrandt.

 

Our poem this month is The Rainy Day, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

The Rainy Day

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

The day is cold, and dark and dreary;

It rains and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

 

My life is cold, and dark and dreary;

It rains and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,

And the days are dark and dreary.

 

Be still, sad heart! And cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

 

Depressing?  Maybe, but true.  And, I want Gavin to know that even when things aren't going the way we want them too that there are always good times ahead.  Plus, since we read the biography about Longfellow, we were able to talk about some of the 'dreary' times in his life when he may have written this poem, and how those 'dreary' times turned out alright as his life continued.