On Friday Gavin divided a triangle into 1/12.  He didn't make as many mistakes as it looks like but we used the same triangle to show 1/4 and 1/8 before showing 1/12 so he could see how the lines change for each.

Then he looked for the hexagon, right triangles, cube, and other various shapes inside his design.  Today we just reviewed fractions and multiplication.

Adelaide has discovered her grocery cart and her new favorite pass time is driving her babies around the house...she is a very crazy driver!

Gavin had been reading a book about King Tut last week and he will read a couple more this week, but for our Egyptian art project he is making an Egyptian style headdress, sarcophagus-style.  I found this project on this website: http://www.dltk-kids.com/world/egypt/mpharaoh_masks.htm.

I cut out an Egyptian mask that I drew free hand on poster board and taped a white plastic face I got at Joann's on the top.  (I cut a hole below the face.) Then I made paper mache using flour and water to act as glue and Gavin glued strips of newspaper across the top.

This is what it ended up looking like.  Not very exciting yet.  It took all weekend to dry and this Friday Gavin is going to paint it with metallic gold spray paint and then he will decorated it with other color paints.

Today in history Gavin mummified an apple!  I cut an apple up and we put one in a glass by itself as our 'control' group and for the other Gavin mixed 1/3 cup baking soda with 1/3 cup salt to make a desiccant.  Then he covered the second apple with the mixture.  He recorded what he did in his science journal since even though it's technically history, it's kind of science too.  He also weighed everything as we went along.  We will check back next Monday to see what happens to the two apples.  We were out of clear plastic cups so we used wine glasses instead which will work just as well.  I got this project from this website: http://www.unmuseum.org/exmum.htm

In science we talked a little bit about what chemistry is and how everything is made up of matter.  We also talked about how some substances react even though we can't see why just by looking at it but we can see the results.  Then we went outside to try out a couple of chemical reactions.

First we mixed baking soda and vinegar.

Then we put Mentos into a 2 liter diet soda bottle to watch it explode.  I didn't actually get a picture of it because I was too busy running to get out of the way!  When Gavin was recording what he saw in his science journal I said it shot out like a geyser and that led to us watching some geysers on YouTube and a video about how geysers form underground.   A little off topic but Gavin enjoyed watching the videos just the same.  Then he wanted to see what would happen if he mixed soda, baking soda and vinegar together so I let him try it.  He did get some nice fuzz from it.

I'm sure that the neighbors think we're weird exploding things in the front yard while the boys are still in their pajamas but that's okay.

Gavin read this chapter book about King Tut last week for homework.

He read this book for history today.

We are using several sources for our Chemistry study and this is one of them.  Both the experiments we did today came from this book.

Austin is starting the letter U this week so we will be reading The Umbrella by Jan Brett the next couple of weeks and doing related activities.  

This weekend Gavin watched a National Geographic show that followed an archaeologist as he explored in a pyramid.  He also watched a Nova show about the mechanics behind the Egyptian chariot.  Last week he told me, "I have learned a lot about Egypt, of course I really didn't know anything about Egypt, but now I pretty much know everything about Egypt."  I think our next lesson will be in humility.  But I am glad he is enjoying ancient Egypt.  Next week we will move on in history to new topics.