Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Adelaide's favorite thing right now is to steal people's chairs the second they get up.  She thinks it's very funny to run over and sit there so they can't anymore.

Gavin used an oven bake clay for the first time to make an Indus Valley cart and ox.  It was surprisingly easy to use although tough to know exactly how long to bake it.



Austin finished up the Letter O this week.


Here is Gavin finishing his cart after it was baked.

It is supposed to have a stick that goes through the bottom part that connects to the yoke of the ox (even though the ox didn't have a yoke).  Anyway, there was a piece of clay half way through that blocked it from going through, even though he had tested it before it baked.  So, he didn't get to put it in.

It turned out nicely anyway!

He also spent some time catching up on his history journal.  He hasn't worked in it since ancient Egypt!  He added three pages about Mesopotamia.

This one says, "Mesopotamia lies between the Tigris and Euphrates river.  Mesopotamia is in modern day Iran.  It is beautiful!

"Mesopotamians invented chariots, wheels and metal weapons.  The wheel we still use today (but not wooden).

"The Mesopotamian army used swords, spears, clubs, bow and arrows and knives.  They used chariots.  You would not like to be in it!  The chariot involved into the army vehicles."  (I don't correct every problem on the paper, only major ones that deal with things he has already learned like capitalization and punctuation.  Otherwise it gets overwhelming for him if I correct too much and he doesn't want to write anymore.)

Last week we read a biography about Matisse and Friday Gavin practiced 'painting with scissors'.  He cut out different sized rectangles and glued them to cover his paper, then cut random shapes and glued them on top.  He was excited to use my paper cutter for the first time to make his rectangles.





Here is his painting.

He finished this book this week.

And read this book as well.

Today we had a special treat and the boys and I went to the Ringling Brothers circus!  We had a great time!!!  We got there an hour early so we could go down in the arena for the pre-show activities.  This elephant is kicking beach balls into the crowd.




 The circus had a construction theme and this guy was dressed like one of those construction men you see in construction zones!
Both the boys were pretty impressed.

Mr. Serious never cracked a smile through the whole thing.  But afterwards he told me about all the "awesome" things he had seen.


This lady was walking across the ceiling.

There were no lions (I think we were at a smaller version of the regular show), but the boys loved the tigers.



This tiger is hopping across the ring like a bunny!

I don't know what you call these people but they are ridiculously strong and bendy!


At intermission the boys got some cotton candy.  It came with a hat which I guess makes up for the ridiculous price.  The boys were very grateful though.


Austin had never had cotton candy before and he really liked it!  Although he told me on the way home he had eaten cotton candy before but it was before I was born.



Still no smiles in the second half.


They brought out dancing poodles!

The boys really liked watching the dogs do tricks.  I told Gavin he better start working with Jackson and Max.

They only had six elephants but elephants are always fun to watch.


That was our day!  It was super fun!




Wednesday, October 16, 2013

This week we have been delving into the ancient Indus River Valley.  Gavin made a map of an Indus city using Legos.  The blue Legos are the raised citadel in the middle of the city, the yellow are the granaries, factories, markets, etc. that surrounded the citadel.
The red Legos are the houses and the small blue ones are wells.  He learned that each house had access to a well close by and they also had indoor plumbing!


Finally he added a wall around the city.

Adelaide has been busy this week too!


These are the books Gavin has read or is reading so far this week.


We actually read this book together as part of geography.

In science we have continued to learn about different elements, focusing on different groups each day and watching corresponding videos on the Periodic Table of Elements channel on YouTube.  He is also working on a Chemistry lapbook as we go along.  This week he did an experiment with an egg to learn why fluoride is important for our teeth.  He placed an egg in a cup half filled with a fluoride toothpaste and left it for several days.  When we took it out he noticed that the side of the egg that was in the toothpaste was whiter than the other side.  Then he put the egg in a cup of vinegar and noticed bubbles coming off the side of the egg that was not in the fluoride and he knew it was because a chemical reaction was taking place.  After a few hours he took the egg out of the vinegar and tapped it on both sides with a pen.  He found that the side that had been in the fluoride was much stronger than the side that had not been in the fluoride.


Our neighbor gave Adelaide this adorable little witch hat but she refused to let me take her picture in it although she does like wearing it!

Here is Gavin tapping the egg to see which side is stronger.

In math Gavin has been working on coloring in multiples (of 2-9) on a hundreds chart to see the patterns they make.

For geography Gavin has been reading about what India's like today.  He tried to make this mandala using different seeds.  It didn't fill in as well as I hoped but he enjoyed gluing them onto his paper.



He also made a salt dough map of India.  Here it is unpainted.

Austin has been busy working on the letter O this week.  Yesterday he painted a piece of paper blue with watercolors (except for a little part that's brown for the ground).  Today he added an octopus to the scene.  He also insisted on adding a shark.  First he glued down the octopus' head and then added eight legs.



Finally, he wrote the numbers 1-8 on each leg and then glued that number of Cheerio's to the leg.  Hard to explain but the picture is below.


Adelaide really liked this craft because she got to eat while he worked.


Here it is.  I thought it turned out cute!


Gavin is working on labeling geographical features in India.


For our India activity today we played Parcheesi, the royal game of India, or so it says on the box!