On the Road

 We took another field trip today to go along with our current artist study--more on that in a few weeks.

 This was actually the first picture, but then we realized that the baby doll had photobombed it, which is why they were trying not to laugh in the other picture.

 We went to Bentonville to visit Crystal Bridges.  (I wrote an article on the museum recently for MetroFamily, but we hadn't been back since our Norman Rockwell trips in the spring.  I don't think I blogged about it, but after we missed out on the show the first day, we went back four days later to see it!)

Jack spotted a Rothko, who was one of the artists they learned about recently in their art class.

 And just so you don't think they're too cultured, one of their favorite things at this museum is the giant elevator, especially if no one else is on it.

 Today the weather was gorgeous, the museum wasn't crowded, and we got to walk the trails!

 So, if you have to indicate that it is art, is it really?  I am not sure about this.

 Giant leaf!

 We got to watch a deer for a little while.  Did I mention the weather was perfect?  I am so glad we get to do stuff like this.  I can't imagine them spending the day sitting in a classroom.  (My kids, not the deer--though I can't imagine the deer in a classroom, either.  Although now that I think about it, when I was teaching in Omaha a deer busted through the big plate glass window at one of the elementary schools one day.  Anyway, I'm glad I could spend the day like this with my kids.)

 "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

 

Happy Friday!

Six Years: Where I Am

 

Six years ago today I started this blog, not really knowing what I was doing, but jumping in anyway because I needed a way to keep Jay in our daily lives while he was on the other side of the world.

Six years have brought a lot of changes: a new baby, a new house, new jobs, and many, many miles on the road.  And as much as things have changed, so many things are still the same: mediocre (but all of us together at home!) dinners, undone chores, all the continual struggles.  And along with those things, lots of really, really great days.  I've made peace with the fact that as fabulous as the life we've chosen is, it's a messy one--sometimes both metaphorically and literally.  (At least I tell myself I have so I can sit here at this messy desk and not have a panic attack about all the things I have on my to-do list.)

This blog gave Jay (and other family and friends) a way to keep up with us, but it's also given me other great opportunities to write and write some more and travel and do things I probably wouldn't have done without someone telling me they'd pay me to do them.  So even though I sometimes feel like I'm behind on things I'd like to share or remember, I'm glad I've kept up with it.

Here's to many more exciting--or honestly, kind of random and mundane--posts!

Pumpkins

 Last month Alice learned about pumpkins!

 She did a little pumpkin report.

 This is her pumpkin collage and her minit book about what plants need to live.  We did the same celery demonstration Jack did a few years ago, but I seem to have forgotten to take any pictures!

 On the left is her pumpkin circle based on the book Pumpkin Circle.   On the right is her seed estimation.

 

 We grouped the seeds by tens and then counted our groups.

 We did this pumpkin piece graph one day (this is linked in this post I did about graphing at MetroFamily) and Alice loved it!

 

 We asked friends on Facebook to tell us their favorite kind of pumpkin dessert and then made a graph showing the results.

 This is Alice's drawing of the pumpkin she cut open during our unit!

Books to Treasure 2013

 Last night was this year's Books to Treasure presentation.  This year the illustrator was Peter Brown.

 Waiting for the talk to start!

 He showed some of his artwork from when he was little, which I always think is fun to see.

 He also talked about some of his favorite picture books.

 He was a pretty entertaining speaker.  I'm not sure who picks the authors and illustrators they bring in, but they do a good job because they are almost always really fun to hear.

 We spent a little over an hour waiting in line but the kids did a pretty good job of keeping themselves happy.

 Finally!  We purchased several books and the kids each got two signed.

 Alice was a little unsure, but she went up all on her own!

 We got home around 10:00 and we were worn out, because in addition to Books to Treasure we also went to see Frogz in the morning...

...and we went to the homeschool skate in the afternoon, where Jack and Alice somehow took second and third place in a roller skating limbo contest.  Thankfully today is much more low-key!

Early Oklahoma History

 We've studied some about really early Oklahoma history and now we've moved on to European exploration and control of what is now Oklahoma.  Jack researched Francisco Coronado, who was the first European explorer to enter present-day Oklahoma.  He used the Explorers Fandex and Land Ho! Fifty Glorious Years in the Age of Exploration.  (I had these both from my classroom days and definitely did not pay those prices!)  He was interested in Coronado because he and Jay watched The Mysterious Cities of Gold, which has some similarities with Coronado's explorations.

 After he did his research, he made a data disk.  I got this idea years ago from Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies and did it each year with my fifth graders.

 Coronado claimed the land for Spain, but there have been a total of 14 different flags to fly over Oklahoma.  This summer I took a workshop (by Dr. Linda Wilson of NSU) at The Apple Tree on teaching Oklahoma history and she had us try to put all 14 flags in order.  We couldn't do it, so I told Jack not to feel too bad.

After he made his best guess, he read through the descriptions (from here) and put them in the correct order.  There is also a 14 Flags Museum I'm hoping to get to in the near future.

There aren't a lot of resources out there for teaching Oklahoma history to kids, so I'll try to be good about sharing what I do find as we go!

Artist Study: Dali

 Our artist for October was Salvador Dali.

 Of course we used our old stand by!

 We've also used this book quite a bit lately.  It gives a nice, simple rundown of the different styles of art along with some examples.

I found this book at the library and it was way more detailed than we needed, but we did go through it and find some other examples of paintings where Dali used the melted clocks.

 I read about The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Salvador Dali on a blog when I was looking for activities and ended up ordering a cheap used copy.  This was a really nice book!

 We've had The Usborne Book of Famous Paintings for a few years now and as you can see by all the tabs I have marked, we make good use of it!

 All of the project ideas can be found on my Artists Pinterest board--at least I'm pretty sure!  This was a collage activity where they were supposed to cut images out of magazines to make a surrealistic picture, like this weird baby cat.

 I really love how the elephants (based on this picture) came out!

Alice wanted to go ahead an use pastels on her elephant, too.  She kind of likes them.  In fact, she's using them as I type this.  If I don't finish this up soon, we'll have an inch of chalk pastel dust in the school room.

 

And of course we had to make our own melted clocks!  We used Model Magic because it is so much easier to work with, but the downside is that it is not as sturdy as clay.  Alice broke hers in half when she pressed down on it too hard!

 We also had some themed snacks this month, starting with mustache milkshakes!

Mustache cookies!
 

This was supposed to be a melted clock cake, but it turned out looking more like a peanut--but it still tasted good!

Mustache cupcakes!
 

Since there is a temporary exhibit at Crystal Bridges we are doing some schedule shuffling and moving our Georgia O'Keeffe artist study to November!

Happy Halloween!

 I failed to take pictures before we started trick or treating, but we had a pharaoh...

 ...and a witch.

 I am quite possibly the worst Halloween photographer ever.  98% of my pictures look like impressionist paintings, so these here are the few that turned out okay.

 We went trick or treating with friends since we don't live in a neighborhood.

 Smoke machine!

 When we got back to their house I remembered to take a picture before Alice got into her jammies.  She was so tired, but she did a great job!

 Jack and the traditional candy dump picture--177 pieces this year!

 Then they got to work sorting it.  He got some really good stuff this year!

Happy Halloween!