Austin got to join us for school time yesterday since his school was closed.  It was kind of nice to have all the kids home!

We read some more about moving west and Gavin made a yarn doll.  He made a boy and I made a girl.  I was going to let Austin make one too but he wasn't interested in making one but both boys played with them for a long time and Gavin took them to show his teacher today.  I found this tutorial from this blog:

http://www.thecraftyclassroom.com/CraftPioneerYarnDoll.html

We had hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies as a snack which is why the chocolate face...it was 20 degrees outside and we were all home, it seemed like a good day for a treat.

These are the books we read.

Adelaide loves doing school with us.  She especially love emptying and tasting the things in Gavin's desk and knocking the books off the table.  Oh, and eating the dirt in the houseplants sitting in the window.  Kind of makes things hard to get done but she's very cute while she's at it!

Today we read a last book about energy.  This one was pretty detailed about what energy is and the different types of energy.  Gavin made a poster of four things and had to tell how energy was being converted into a different form of energy in his picture.  I wrote down what he said just because his writing is so large he didn't want to write over his picture.

Thursday Gavin learned a little more about energy, including potential (or stored) energy and kinetic energy.  We read a couple books about energy and then did a couple experiments.  In the first experiment Gavin put a car at the end of a board - then held it at ankle level, then knee level, then hip level - to see what would happen.  We talked about when the car has potential/kinetic energy and then about how gravity effected the car depending on the height of the board.  He recorded his findings in his science journal.

After he recorded his observations with the car, he tried the same thing with a toy camera and we talked about why the camera didn't go as fast as the car.  For some reason the idea of friction has caught his attention and the friction that occurs in daily life has been pointed out many times this last few days...for some reason he likes this topic.  He's been explaining it to Austin while they play with their toys.

When he finished this we briefly discussed how energy is transferred from object to object, then he crashed cars together (Hot Wheels, not real cars!) to see what would happen.

Adelaide has discovered that if she stretches she can reach my little basket of bottles on my vanity.  This makes her very happy because she really likes to inspect them.  She has also figured out how to open cupboard doors and the door to the fireplace - which is Awesome!  There is nothing like cleaning ashes off a baby to make you grateful they've learned something new :)

On Friday, Gavin finished his Charles Russell painting.  Last week he worked on blending watercolors to make a sunset.  Yesterday Gavin drew a landscape on black paper, then added his landscape and some silhouettes of desert animals to his painting.  I don't think Charles Russell ever actually did silhouettes, but it looked nice anyway.

Today was beautiful so we went for a walk and then played outside.  The boys were outside all day which was awesome!

Here is Adelaide helping me cook dinner.

Yesterday Gavin and I talked about the principle, 'Push pushes back with equal force'.  Gavin tried to push the couch with his toes touching the bottom of the side.  He soon realized he had to put his feet back as leverage to push the couch.  Then we talked about how leverage helps us generate more force and how simple machines, such as a lever, can help generate more force as well.  Here he is trying to push the couch:

We used this science kit to see if it's really easier to use a lever.

These are the books we read.

This book wasn't quite so relevant but it was interesting because it showed how a family uses force to do things throughout the day on a farm.

Austin and Adelaide were happily playing in her room until she saw me!

She enjoys pulling toys out of the door of the little acorn house.

Here is Adelaide today chewing on a maraca.

Gavin traced Australia from our atlas today (we forgot to do it last week)!  We researched to find the temperature in Australia.  I let him pick the city and he picked Adelaide, Australia.  It's 66 and sunny there today.  We also found out that they have great weather all year round!  Then the boys watched a documentary about Australian animals and terrain on Hulu.  Gavin is in pajamas today.  It was pajama day at Austin's school so Gavin declared it pajama day for us too!  Austin changed in to clothes as soon as he got home (we wasn't too happy to go to school in pajamas) but Gavin stayed in them until it was time for Awanas.

We read some books about traveling on a wagon train.  Then we made this awesome covered wagon I got from this blog: http://indietutes.blogspot.com/2010/06/covered-wagon.html

All I had to get was brown posterboard, everything else we had around the house.

Here are the books we read today.

We also read a book called "The American West" by Leslie Waller.  It was published in 1966 but I couldn't find a picture anywhere!

Gavin is about 3/4 through with Little House in the Big Woods.  I thought he would need some help with it but he's been reading it no problem.  He is going faster than I thought he would because he's reading it in his free time too!  I only make him read 15 minutes during 'school' time.

We have been reading this book before bedtime.