We have settled back into school this week.  Gavin is working on beginning multiplication in math and borrowing from the 100s place when there is a 0 in the tens place (ex: 306-129=).  Today we just reviewed a little bit and played addition war.

In geography this month we started Australia.  Since today was the first day Gavin got to open his package from Little Passports.  This is always very exciting!  Today he got a neat kangaroo magnet decorated in Aboriginal artwork.  Then we read about Australia and made a didgeridoo after watching people play them on YouTube.

This is when he saw the magnet.

It is cute!

He found Australia on the map.

It works out nicely because Australia Day is January 26th so we are planning our Australian meal for that day.

Austin made a didgeridoo with Gavin.  Gavin used a wrapping paper tube and Austin used a paper towel tube.  They used dot paint to paint the dots over them and then we used electrical tape to make the black stripes going around them.

Here is the finished product.

They really play too!  The boys thought they were neat, especially Austin, who likes anything having to do with music (although I will say I'm using the term 'music' lightly in this case!).

In history last week we read about Clara Barton and Gavin watched a video about her on www.havefunwithhistory.com.

Today we learned about the transcontinental railroad.  We read two books about the building of the railroad and then watched a Snoopy video about it.

In science yesterday we read a book about gravity and then watched the movie "The Tale of Two Isaacs" about Isaac Newton.