This week Gavin is finishing up his first quarter along with his study of the Israelites.  Next week he will start learning about ancient India.

On Friday Austin worked on a puzzle.

To finish up his study on artist Paul Klee, Gavin had to make a sculpture.  Similar to the one line drawing, Gavin was given a wire (it was a hanger that had been straightened) and he had to make something with it.  

He made a snake.  Not super imaginative but not bad compared to some other modern 'art' I've seen.

Yesterday Austin started learning about the letter O.  This is the last of the vowels so in a couple weeks he will start working on consonants.  Since he has learned all his vowels we will start doing activities that use all five of them.  We don't really have a theme for letter O but we will read books about several things that start with the letter.  On Monday we read a book about ostriches and then he worked on a matching the vowels game.

He also did a maze to get the knight to the dragon.

Adelaide read her books nicely while he worked.

Then I got out some animal magnets for her.  It is a challenge to keep her occupied while we are trying to work!

Today Gavin started a new country in geography.  We are not staying so neatly into the one month increments like we did last year.  But, it works out great because we are starting ancient India next week in history.  First he opened his package from Little Passports.

He read the letter then reached inside to see what the surprise was this month.

It was a little stuffed tiger.

Gavin traced India on a map.

He finally finished his Tabernacle in history!  It's been a longer project then I anticipated but it has been a good one nonetheless.

Here's some close up pictures.

He is learning about the different groups of elements on the periodic table.  We learned about alkali metals, transitional metals and metalloids.  He is working on a lapbook to go along with everything he is learning.  He is also watching videos on YouTube from The Periodic Table of Videos channel (the ones by the University of Nottingham students).  He really enjoys the videos and seems to be learning a lot from them about the uses and reactions of different elements.  We have also read more in our Chemistry book.  Today he also had an experiment to do, or at least start.  He was reading about nonmetals and their properties.  So, he filled a cup half full of a fluoride toothpaste, drew a picture of a little man on one side of an egg with permanent marker, and placed that side of the egg in the toothpaste.  He will check it in a few days to see what will happen to his egg.

Today we also went on a field trip to a raptor rehabilitation center.  We got to see a couple different types of hawks, an owl and an American kestrel up close and personal!  We all really enjoyed it!

These are the books I've read with Austin so far this week.

Gavin and I read this book about India today.

Gavin is reading through this book this week.  It is a longer book so he has the week to get through it.  It details life in the Sinai Desert as told through the Bible and archaeology and it is really interesting.