Wednesday Austin got to do a fun activity with this toy that he got for Christmas:

It's kind of a puzzle but you get to nail the pieces into a piece of cork with a little wooden hammer.  Needless to say, he loved it and kept doing it even after school was over.

Gavin is learning about the split of Israel into Israel and Judah after Solomon's death.  He labelled a map showing the split.

In science he got to break open a couple geodes.  The first one opened fairly easily, the second one took some doing.  Both were fun though.  While he was working on it we talked about how geodes look like plain rocks on the outside, like nothing special, but they are beautiful on the inside.  We used this to talk about how God looks at the inside, not the outside appearance, and how it doesn't matter what a person looks like what matters is that they have a good heart.

Here he is trying to put the labels on a blank map in history. 

Adelaide got to paint yesterday with a Melissa and Doug paint book where the paint is at the top of the page.  It worked well as far as the paint showing up on the paper but it kind of confused her because you have to mix the water in the paint like watercolors.

Gavin used shapes to make a Russian city skyline yesterday.  I cut out a few 'onion' style domes and then rectangles, squares and arches for him to use.

When he was done he added doors, windows and other random things.  He put a cross on the top of the domes like they have in Russia but insisted they needed lightening rods as well.

Today Austin cut food out of grocery flyers to glue onto the letter G.  He ended up gluing stuff all over the paper so you really couldn't see the G anymore.

Gavin used soft pastels to make a ballerina pictures a la Degas, who is our artist of the month.  We did not actually get to art last Friday since it was just one of those days where nothing got done for some reason.  Anyway, he did a really good job and actually gave the girls necks and such.  Usually he just does stick figures still.

I call it Degas meets Picasso.

In science Gavin experimented with rocks to see if he could figure out what type of rock they were; igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.  I had a science kit with different types or rocks for him to use.  First he looked at the color, texture and other features of the rock and recorded his findings.

He also checked to see if they were transparent.

He used a balance to weigh each rock in grams.

He did a streak test...

and studied them carefully.

He also did a scratch test using the Mohs scale and dipped them in vinegar to see if they would fizz.  Finally, he checked to see if they were magnetic or not.  Then using his findings, he tried to determine what type of rock they were.  He did a really good job.  He did this for just over an hour and got over half right.

Gavin read these two books about Degas.

This book is actually about Anna Pavlova but all the pictures are paintings by Degas.

He read this chapter book in history.

And this book about the Assyrians.

He has also been reading this book about studying rocks and geology.