Today we learned about the California gold rush.  We read this book:

Then Gavin panned for gold.  If it wasn't below freezing outside I would have put water in the dishpan and made him do it outside, but, it was way too cold for that.  I thought briefly about doing it in the bathtub but honestly just didn't want to clean the mess.  Anyway, a couple weeks ago I had Gavin find 10 rocks in the backyard.  I spray painted them with metallic gold spray paint and 'hid' them in a dishpan full of rocks.  Gavin used a foil tin pan to look for the gold in the rocks.

So I thought Austin would want to join us in this activity but instead he worked on his fire truck puzzle.  I had already helped him with it twice but he wanted to do it again.  It's about four feet long and he really likes putting it together!

It's a little hard for him to do by himself but he was patient.  He didn't get it completed but we ran out of time and had to put it away.