Three cheers for me! I actually stuck with my plan for art, and we did our first project yesterday...Jackson Pollack inspired. 

Here are the boys in the backyard: (click to make larger)

Yup, tackled this in the backyard, having first made the boys spread out and reminding them that...though we're doing Jackson Pollack inspired pieces...we don't have an entire barn to devote just to art like Pollack had...so pretty please keep the paint limited to the canvas and the grass as much as possible. ;) As you can see, Micah really got into the "whole body" action we'd read about when talking about Pollack. (He was very enthusiastic, lol.) And, though he'll deny it, Noah even had some fun with the whole process, lol.

All in all, each boy painted three different canvases and we had a lot of fun. It always makes me smile how the boys' personalities just shine through no matter what the medium. For instance...here are their work spaces (and, yes, I continue to use baking sheets for school stuff about as much as baking, lol):

I'll let you guess whose is whose. ;)

And, here are their canvases:

These are the three that the boys decided they personally liked best...the ones they want to hang in their respective rooms. (That's Micah's, Asher's and Noah's if you couldn't tell.) 

Yup, fun times! In case you're inspired now, here are some things we learned from this experience:

• Mixing paint is a perfect opportunity to discuss types of galaxies. (Our science lesson this week dealt with classifying galaxies. Noah and Micah started talking about this all on their own...with Noah mixing and quizzing Micah.)
• Watering down the paint a good bit helps with the whole splatter thing. (We just used normal tempera paint, though Jackson Pollack apparently preferred house paint. And, though we do have a good variety of house paint on hand, lol, I figured the tempera paint would clean up a lot easier and be better for the grass.)
• Incidentally, I think I've had these same bottles of tempera paint for a decade or so. Wow. Probably time for some new paint pretty soon. ;)
• It's a good thing that I stopped boys from putting any shoes on. (These are Asher's feet. Micah's were actually (unsurprisingly) worse. I have no idea how he ended up with paint on the bottoms of his feet, too. I'm thinking he either spilled some paint in the grass and stepped in it, used his feet in the painting process itself or stepped in his paint tray...or, quite possibly, all three, lol. 
• Bring wipes outside with you to wash up boys before letting them back in the house. (Also unsurprisingly, Noah did not require washing up after we were done. He had, maybe, a few splatters of watered down light grey paint on his foot. Not quite sure how he managed that. The other two went straight into baths, lol.)
• Race tees that don't fit (because apparently many races don't have kid sized shirts) make fabulous paint shirts. (This was actually *after* we'd cleaned Micah up a bit.)
• If we'd had more time and space, it would be fun to experiment with using things beyond a bunch of different types of paint brushes for splattering paint. I'm thinking...rolling hot wheels cars, blowing through straws, shooting spit wad paint balls, shooting marbles, dropping paint from above, and all sorts of other stuff. Hmmm. May need to do a repeat... ;) (with larger canvases?)

And that was our Jackson Pollack art project afternoon. ;) Yay!

Just some quick thoughts on this rainy day...

1. Deanna's brother did manage to capture a picture of us going after Noah at the end of the Mud Brigade:

Yeah, I don't see any of our boys wanting to participate in a mud run soon. ;)

2. On Monday, we melted chocolate in the microwave to learn about and calculate the speed of light. I'll be honest, I didn't really "get" it. But, Nathan was able to explain the hertz and waves and such to the boys and we all got to each chocolate, so everyone wins. ;)

3. Yesterday was my baby sister's birthday! Wishing her a happy birthday always makes me feel old, lol. 

4. I think I need a program that uses Star Wars to make the parts of speech "cool." If you find one, let me know, okay?

5. Dear Colorado weather, while I appreciate the rain and cooler temperatures today (hello high in the 50s today whereas Monday was above 90, but whatever), would you please remind people who drive here that rain will not melt them or anything and is not a good reason to drive 15 miles under the speed limit just to annoy me?

6. Incidentally, though, I do totally thank you for holding off on this small cold spell until today. Running the Mud Brigade in this weather would have been miserable! (And, hey, I get to wear a sweater and jeans and my new jacket!)

That was all. Now I must be off to take advantage of my time while the boys are at LEAP... ;)