His week we learned about the southwest Indian tribes.  The kids made a Navajo sand picture.  It was a messy craft but it was fun and they turned out great.

 

The kids learned about the digestive system this week.  We had many interesting, albeit somewhat gross and/or funny, discussions this week.  We did an experiment to see how bile helps break down the fats in our diet.

Here are the finished sand paintings.

Austin learned what congruent means and practiced making congruent shapes and patterns on the geoboard.

This is just a random picture of Austin that Gavin took.

Each of the boys picked out an Indian tribe and they are making a poster about their tribe.  Gavin learned about the Apache and Austin learned about the Seminole.  Hopefully we will finish these this week since it is our last week of Native American study.

Yesterday we went to the zoo.  We always get there when it opens because the carousel is free the first hour.  We rode on it three times before checking out the animals.

First up was the new arctic exhibit.  Penguins are always fun!

Apparently it was world rhino day...who knew.  Anyway, Gavin pretended to be a rhino explorer and used a rain stick to warn the rhinos about approaching poachers.

Nothing really much to say but here are some pictures of our adventure.

Gavin is trying to be a sea lion in this picture.

We went to the sea lion show.  It's only on weekends and the last couple of years we went to the zoo on a week day so it was exciting to get to go to the sea lion show again.

These pictures were back at the arctic exhibit, sorry they are out of order.  The zoo just got a polar bear a couple months ago and he was so awesome!  He was showing off for us and kept swimming right by us.  It was so fun!

Isn't he adorable?  Kind of makes me wish I could have a polar bear...I think he was our favorite animal of the day just because he was so active.

It's hard to see, but there is a hippo behind Adelaide.

This was Adelaide when the first sea lion came out during the sea lion show.

And, fall is fast approaching.  I took this picture near our house when I was out walking Wednesday morning.  The specks on the water are geese.  They were just waking up.

And I took this picture from our back porch as the sun was going down Thursday.

This week all our extra curricular activities are back in full swing so it's getting a little busier around here.  We are getting in to our school routine for the year.  It changes a little each year so the first few weeks of school is adjusting to how long things are taking and how much help each child needs with each subject.

 

Austin has been learning about making change and using different coins to get the same amount of cents (two dimes and a nickel, one dime two nickels and five pennies, etc.).

Last week we were studying the skeletal system.  The boys were challenged to make a human body that could stand using Play-Doh.  After trying several times to make it stand, I gave them toothpicks to stick in their creations legs, arms and head to act as bones.  They discovered that using the toothpicks helped make their creation stand up.

As we learned about Cherokee Indians, the kids made Native American headdresses.  First they colored the pattern and glued it on a piece of cardboard.  Then we used construction paper to make a band to fit their head.  To dress it up a little we punched holes in the top, stuck in some pipe cleaners, added beads to the pipe cleaners and then glued feathers to the top.

We used an empty cereal box as our cardboard.

The pipe cleaners didn't stand up as well as I hoped.  I should have cut them to make them shorter but obviously didn't.

The boys added the skeletal system to their personal person.

This week we learned about the Plains Indians so the boys made tomahawks.  I found kits at Hobby Lobby so the kids just used marker to make designs on the handle and then we strung the top part on with a leather string.

We learned about the muscular system this week.  Just for a fun activity, I made an obstacle course in the backyard for the kids to run through and use their muscles.  Crawling under chairs isn't as easy for Gavin as it used to be!

They ran over board.

They did a bean bag toss and then jumping jacks.

Austin's jumping jacks.

They ran around our tree three times, then ran to the other side of the yard and back to the deck.

They also had to jump back and forth over a broom handle three times.

Of course Adelaide tried it too!

This week we had time for a little nature study.  We went to a new nature area we haven't been to before and looked for different types of grasses.

While we were at the nature area we worked on some poetry.  Both the boys wrote a couplet about fall.  Gavin had to do two couplets since he's been writing poetry a few years now.

 

Austin's says,

"The pretty colors of fall

make the trees look tall."

 

Gavin's says,

"In the early fall

when the leaves doth fall

the leaves fall on the ground

in a massive mound."

The kids drew the grasses they found in their nature journals.