What's a Pully Bone?

When we were reading Misty of Chincoteague, we came to the part about the pully bone.  

The kids had no idea what a pully bone was, but I was prepared.

 It is a wishbone!

Well, the kids have pulled a wishbone before so mystery solved.

We decided to act out the part of the brother and sister in the book.

As I was reading, they pulled at the same time the characters pulled and what do you know?

The bone broke the same way as the story!

They won't forget that part, I'm sure.

An apple a day.

We like fruit.  

If we eat dinner early, the munchkins usually want a snack before bed. 

I can't blame them, so do I.

Apples are the kid's first choice most of the time.

When it is apple season, we pick as much we can carry.

This year was 92 bls.

(they are canned or eaten already!)

Pumpkins weren't ready, so when we go back for them, we will probably get more apples.

Lorh's orchard is our favorite, hidden, little orchard for strawberries in the Spring and apples/pumpkins in the Fall. 

Art Class

 Self Portrait 101

 We use journals to record a lot.  

Science hypotheses, letters, lists.... Really, anything they need to write down, so it is all in one place.  

So, to start our little self portrait unit, we discussed 

"about ME."

This is Phase 1.

(please excuse the upside down flag, she got a little confused)

 What our names mean

Livia- Olive= peace

George- Earth worker

Virginia- Maiden

Margaret- Pearl

 Some of our favorite things.

 What we want to be when we grow up.

 What makes us feel happy, sad, angry.....

Then we started on simple shapes.  We did a lot of circles and ovals.

The trick is to go round and round quite a few times until you can find a good circle or oval.

I didn't record this part, but I went step by step with facial proportions.

I was drawing my own as they did theirs.

 I took a lot of erasing, but we ended up with just what we wanted.

Then came the paint!

I didn't focus much on techniques, but we did some water color trouble shooting.

 Liv kept adding to her picture with more and more accessories.  

Just like real life.

 Virginia was not about to be left out of the painting, 

even though she wasn't interested in the sketching part.

 I loved watching George's techniques.  

He likes layers.

So do I.

 We have a happy artist!

With the moody attitude she inherited from me, 

you never know what kind of artist you will get!

Yikes!

Phase 2 is finished.

The 3 steps of George and Liv's process.

Ginnie Jane's process (experimentation and fine motors skills)

Phase 3 is coming.

We will merge Phase 1 and Phase 2.