This week Austin is learning the letter T for turtle.  He told me last week he wants to do more crafts so I am trying to make that happen!  On Monday he painted an ocean on a piece of paper using watercolors.

Adelaide has discovered puzzles and she loves them!  She can do these easy ones by herself.

On Tuesday Austin used regular paint to paint turtles into his ocean.  I tried to show him how to paint a turtle so he wouldn't just scribble over his ocean and he did a great job trying!

Here's his final painting.

Adelaide also really likes this game.  It's like a puzzle in that you take the pieces off and try to put them back on.

Today Austin made a turtle out of a paper plate.  He covered the plate with glue and added green and brown squares.

Then we added a head, flippers and tail.

We thought it turned out nicely too!  Of course, we are not very picky in this house.

Gavin's semester is winding down a bit this week.  He has read these books.

This reader has a section about ocean animals.

This week Austin played with the Design and Drill.  It's kind of like the activity he did last week but you make designs using pegs that have to be drilled into holes on a board.

Austin marched around like a soldier.  That's a pretty common occurrence at this house.

Adelaide played with the dot paints.

We had nice weather this week so the kids played outside.

Gavin worked on a still life painting in a Renoir style.  Luckily our neighbor gave us some beautiful flowers from her garden so we had flowers in a vase to paint.

Austin painted a star fish in an ocean.

Here is Gavin's painting.  We experimented a bit with how to draw flowers which is why they look different on different parts of the paper.

And this is the Greek style pot he painted from last week.  This is the horse that is attached to a chariot.

The chariot is on the right with the soldier on the left.

Gavin has been reading these books this week.

We have done several crafty things this week.  Austin is working on the Letter B for Beach so he did a beach theme craft and Adelaide got to join in the fun this time.  She really wants to do crafts with us and loves all things crafty.   I have been putting her off because I haven't wanted the mess which isn't fair so I am going to try and involve her more in what the boys are doing.  Yesterday Austin and Adelaide decorated starfish.  We even broke out the glitter for this adventure!

It wasn't as much of a mess as I thought it would be...of course it helped that all the tubes of glitter were almost empty...

Gavin painted a terra cotta pot Greek style, painting geometric patterns on the top and bottom and people in the middle.  I didn't take a picture of the final product yet, I'm waiting until I put a plant in it which should be some time this week and then I'll post a picture.

Adelaide will draw on anything with anything.  I have gotten her to only use paper, which is an improvement, but she will color on any paper she finds, even though she has a drawer with paper that she knows she is allowed to have.  Gavin has to be very careful with his school books and papers.

To finish their craft from yesterday, Austin and Adelaide glued sand paper to the bottom of some oceany scrapbook paper I had on hand, then glued down their starfish.

No project is complete in this house without googly eyes!

And here they are!

Austin and I have read these books about the beach.

Gavin did a really neat craft today for China, which is our country in geography this month.  First, we tore pieces of construction paper in the colors he needed, then he used them to make a panda bear.

Adelaide had to do it too when she saw the glue back out so I gave her her own paper to glue on.

I forgot to take a picture of his final picture but you can kind of see it here.  I'll try to remember tomorrow and put it up.

Austin played with Play-Doh today.

Adelaide painted in a paint with water book.

Continuing his study of ancient Greece, Gavin put together a paper model of the Trojan Horse, which is free on this website: http://www.dltk-kids.com/world/greece/m-trojan.htm

In science, Gavin is continuing to learn about the ocean.  This week the focus is on large ocean animals.  He asked me today if he could learn about the ocean for the rest of second grade!  I think he just likes that it's a lot easier than Chemistry!

These are the books he has read about Ancient Greece so far this week.