Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The Tulsa State Fair

 I'm not a fair person.  In years past I've avoided mentioning it to the kids, for fear they'll want to go, and I was successful until now.  Jack asked to go and pointed out that they had coupons from the library to get in for free, so I agreed to take them.

 Instead of using their coupons, we went as part of Oklahoma's Largest Classroom, so we were able to get there early and avoid some of the crowds.  We were actually the first ones in and the kids were able to start the fun right away without waiting in any lines!  All the stuff in the first building was free!

 They loved the giant sandbox!

 This dairy truck was really funny.  A lady was controlling it from upstairs and would drive it around and talk to people--and you couldn't tell at first how the truck could "see" things about you.  It was actually really entertaining to see people react to it.

 Next we went to see some of the animals.

 This little sheep was only five hours old!

 Alice loved seeing the sheep take the bottle.

 Then we watched a dog get surgery!  When they were prepping the dog, there were lots of people watching.

 When they started cutting, most of the crowd dispersed!

 I'm pretty sure I was grimacing through the whole thing!

 Baby chicks hatching!

 We had some fair food!

 The kids enjoyed watching the trick dogs.

 They also did a few rides.  They both did the fun house together.

 Himalaya!



 They played a game and won a stuffed frog.

They had a blast, and I really had a good time, too.  I'm even willing to try it again next year!

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Fall Fun Fair

 After we left Pumpkintown, we went home and got ready for the Fall Fun Fair at the community center.

 We were in such a rush I failed to notice the hanger was still attached to Alice's costume!  Thankfully we found someone to cut it off so she didn't have to keep explaining to other kids why she had this thing on her head.

 Balloon animals!

 Most of my pictures of Jack are kind of stalkerish.  He got his tickets and took off to play!

 They had all kinds of games set up around the gym--it was kind of like a school carnival.



 This picture makes me laugh!

It was a great time!  The kids both had a lot of fun, so they are hoping they hold this again next year!

Pumpkintown

 A couple of weeks ago we spent the afternoon at Pumpkintown!

 The kids always love the jumping pillow.

 This was new this year and they loved it!  We're trying to convince my mom and dad they need some of these on their land...

 Fun with cousins!

 We always find his old playhouse.

 Corn bin!!!

 This was also the first year they played this shooting game.  As you can see, Alice was pretty serious!


 Jack and Alice got to help drive the wagon!


Sweet girl!

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Artist Study: Paul Gauguin

 We started off this year's artist studies with Paul Gauguin.

 We used the usual Getting to Know... biography along with The Life and Work of Paul Gauguin.  We didn't read through all of Good Day, Mister Gauguin, but we used it to see some more of his work.  (Nutter Butter Acorns are found here--but I used Nutella instead of melting chocolate chips.)

We used Discovering Great Artists for the landscape projects pictured below and we used Name That Style to read as an introduction.  Art Smart is a new book I picked up at our museum when we went to see a sculpture by Gauguin.
 
 There are pictures by famous artists and after looking at the picture for a while, you flip the page and see how many of the questions you can answer about what you saw.

 Field trip!

 The Usborne Book of Famous Artists is a great general resource!

 How Artists See Artists has a brief section of Gauguin and Van Gogh.

 We also read The Yellow House, which is about the friendship between Gauguin and Van Gogh.

 We've had this one (from the Mini Masters series) since Alice was little.

 We got this CD at the museum, too, and listened to it while we worked on our projects.

 We made Gauguin-inspired landscapes.

 My finished painting.

 We also did the Fauve Portraits project from Art Projects for Kids.