We didn't get quite as much done this week as I had planned because we have had a stomach bug passing around the house.  First Adelaide had it, then I had it, then Steven had it.  Hopefully the boys won't get it and that will be the end of it because it's no fun!  

Wednesday Gavin and Austin worked on Aboriginal kangaroo artwork.  We read a few books about kangaroos (not all where non-fiction) then the boys stenciled a kangaroo onto a piece of paper.  When it dried they used Q-Tips to make dots on their kangaroos.  I told Gavin to make dots in patterns, not randomly around the paper, but as you can see, he didn't listen to me!

You can see my neat circle where I showed him what to do.  We looked at examples of Aboriginal artwork on the computer too and talked about the patterns.

And here is what I got.  Austin's picture is the top one.

We are well on our way to Oregon!  We are still focusing on the journey to get there but soon will switch over to life on the prairie.  On Thursday, Gavin and I built a replica of Fort Laramie with his Lincoln Logs.

We read this book on Wednesday.  It is quite detailed and took a while to read so that's the only one we read on Wednesday.

Gavin finished 'Little House' today and promptly asked for the second book.  He was reading it this evening and said he thinks it will be better than the first book so we'll see.

We should be finished with Bound for Oregon sometime next week.  They are crossing the mountains.

On Thursday the boys went on a field trip with Austin's school to the Planetarium.  They both had an awesome time!  Apparently Jupiter is visible right now but it was too cloudy to see it.

We will finish George Washington Carver next week.  I'm sure I have mentioned this but on Friday's we read a little from a book about a person from whatever time period we are learning about in history.  It's just a way to dive a little deeper into people's lives then what you get in a more general book.

Today after Gavin took his math and language tests, we played Scrabble Junior, which I think is harder than regular Scrabble.  Anyway, we had fun.  I've been trying to play more board games with Gavin on Fridays.  It's just a fun wind down from the week and Fridays are our lightest school day work-wise.  

And, I couldn't find another art thing to do about Charles Russell, so I had Gavin copy me as I followed directions for drawing a horse I found online (one of those line by line drawings).  I thought it was fitting since there are always horses in Russell's paintings.  Anyway, here's the horse he drew...not too bad.

Then I made him put the horse in a full picture and color it with colored pencils.  This is what I got.  In case you can't see, the side of the wagon says "Going to California for Gold' because we read and saw pictures of some wagons with messages on the side.  The old fashioned soap on the windshield I guess.  The driver is saying "Hi, Hi' complete with little comic bubble and he's waving and whipping the horse at the same time.