This week was all about preparing for our upcoming field trip to the Museum of Modern Art. We read the Book "Seen Art", which is about a boy looking for his friend Art, but was misdirected to the MoMA. Every page was full of sculptures, drawings and paintings found in MoMA's permanent collection. The class looked closely at them, observing various compositions,media and techniques. After we finished the story, we closed our eyes to imagine our world with out art. The kids thought about not having paintings and drawings on our walls, everyone dressing the same, having no music to listen to or stories to read. It would be pretty dull! We talked about what they know about art and who can be an artist (everyone, of course!), but people have many different ideas of what art can be. We also listed the various types of art including architecture, culinary, literature, fashion, dance and music.

After talking about general art theory, we focused on a few modern artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. The kids viewed pictures of Claude Monet's Water Lilies as we talked about the impressionist movement and painting "En Plein Air". They learned that, a long time ago, most artists painted inside their studio and often worked from memory. When artists, such as Monet, began to use portable tubes of paint, they could work outside, "in the open air", painting what they see in front of them in nature.

The class experimented with this idea during a journal activity. They took their journals outside and found a place to work, drawing what they saw in front of them. They paid attention to color and form and thought about how they felt while viewing particular objects and scenes.

We studied artist Paul Klee, who is known for his remarkable use of color. The kids loved looking through his paintings, noticing his figures and symbols. They thought about why certain symbols were used and what the figures were doing. There was one painting with an arrow pointing East over a figure's head. When asked "Why do you think there is a pointing arrow?", one of the kids responded "Because there is a bear the other way!" FYI, there was no bear in the painting.

The class was very drawn to "Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. After looking at a series of his paintings, the children picked up on a lot of movement and bright colors. We talked about the use of brush stroke and how van Gogh layers his paint and uses a lot of it.

The last artist we studied this week was Hans Arp, which actually came about after some of the kids were making paper collages that were strikingly similar to one of his paintings. The kids learned that some artists left their work up to chance or randomness, and used "ready-made" objects as art, such as a shovel, wheel or cut out pieces of paper.

Taking a break from art, we started doing basic addition using our snack menu. For example, if we have 1 cup of water, 5 grapes and 2 crackers, how many pieces of snack should you have on your plate? We tallied up each item and counted them together for our final answer.

Also this week, we made it to hippo park before the rain came (90th and CPW). The kids loved being in central park and suggested we have a picnic there one day. When I asked them what they wanted to bring many of them declared they would bring different fruits and vegetables! I can't really argue with that.

For this week, we will have our field trip to MoMA on Monday and will continue learning about, observing and making our own art. I told the kids that what we've been doing is analyzing or critiquing art as we question and observe it.

I hope you all had a great weekend. Remember to sign up for conferences if you have not done so already.

Amanda