We had a busy week at school this week.  Extra curricular activities have started in full force.  We did have some time to get things done and even to enjoy some playtime.  Adelaide has been playing with the Duplos.

 

Adelaide is all about doing school.  As soon as Austin sits down at the table to start his work she runs over to grab her books to work on too.

Adelaide got this fabulous princess costume.  She loves it and wore it all day on Wednesday.  She even did her cooking it.

On Thursday we did several more science experiments regarding the sun.  First we spread sunscreen on half of a piece of black construction paper then put it out in the sun all day.  We observed how the unprotected side faded while the side with sunscreen stayed black.  Then we talked about why it's important to wear sunscreen.

Gavin had read that the color black is actually made up of all the colors put together.  We did an experiment to test this by drawing a line on a coffee filter with black permanent marker and then dipping it in alcohol.  This experiment didn't work so well for us because all we got was purple.

Austin is doing great with cursive writing. 

He is also doing a great job at RightStart Math.  This week he combined making the numbers 1-10 on the abacus, using tally marks and with his fingers so he can 'see' them different ways.

Our other experiment, I think it is really more demonstration, was to watch the shadow of a pencil every hour and track the changes.  The boys recorded their observations in their science journal each time they went outside.

Austin also worked on patterns this week in math.

Austin read these books.

And Gavin read this book.  He also read about the rise of the Islamic Empire and about Muhammad in Story of the World and Famous Men of the Middle Ages by John Haaren.



Austin is reviewing his vowel sounds and working more at identifying vowels in words as well as beginning blends.  Yesterday I read words to him and he had to jump up and down if there was an 'e' sound in the word and do jumping jacks if there was an 'i' sound.

In RightStart Math he put abacus flashcards and tally mark flashcards in order 1-10.

Yesterday was a bit of a trying day so that's all the pictures I took.  It wasn't bad attitudes just multiple broken objects, beads accidently dropped and rolling all over the floor...that sort of thing.

 

This morning Adelaide worked more on placing stickers in different scenes.  She really loves these Kumon books.

Austin did his work in his Navy suit.  I made him take the gloves off though.

Then Adelaide worked on her colors in her Abeka book.

Austin and I played a matching game with the abacus cards.

He wasn't a much better winner than Gavin used to be when he was in kindergarten.

In science we learned about craters while Gavin read more about the sun.  Austin, Adelaide and I dropped marbles into a bin with sand in it to see how craters are made.  The sun was kind of glaring off Austin's uniform.  Obviously, Gavin couldn't be left out.

I also discovered a globe beach ball in our science kit so I blew that up and we went back in the bathroom to demonstrate an eclipse and to show that when it's daytime on one side, it's nighttime on the other.  Austin thought that was amazing.  Gavin and I talked a little more in-depth about why we have time zones.

 

Then we made a pinhole sun viewer to look at the sun.

Gavin worked on geometry today using cubes. I would tell him to build an array 2 X 3 X 3 and he would build it and find the area of the shape.

Here are the books we have read.  Austin, Adelaide and I read this today.

And this yesterday.  We are studying the rise of the Islamic Empire this week.

Gavin finished Beowulf and we listened to the first part of it in Old English on YouTube which was fun if unintelligible.

And the first half of this book today.

 

 



Today we did a lot of art projects.  This morning Austin and Adelaide painted the sun.  I put red and yellow paint on a circle and they used their hands to mix it all together to cover the sun.

 

That wasn't enough playing in paint so when they finished their suns I gave them a piece of paper with a few more colors to mix.

Here are the finished suns.

And their paintings.

 

Our artist of the month is Giotto and today we made egg tempera paint.  We talked about how they used to make paint using minerals, plants and insects.  Then we scraped chalk into the cups of an empty egg carton, mixed egg yolk and a little water together and poured some into each of the cups that had chalk dust in it.  Then Gavin used the paints to make a picture.