Beautifull Oops

  So on a bright and beautiful day, the Purple and Yellow groups head out to explore some paintings at the Museum of American Art. We teachers had carefully selected several paintings and sculptures to see and then, over several days we gathered related books, art prints and real objects to enrich our art experience. We communicated with a museum docent to make sure everything we wanted to see was on display and had marked the locations on a map. Everything was in it's place....Well, almost everything.

It turns out that every Smithsonian Museum opens at 10a.m., every museum that is but the one that we were trying to visit. Massive Oops! So there we were, all dressed up and no where to go.




What to do? The museum wouldn't open for an hour and a half, And then we had to be back to ALG by 1ish...A teacher quickly suggested, on that gorgeous sunny and warm day, to walk several blocks down to the Sculpture Garden.

And there, we decided to stay in the warm sunshine and retrofit our original plan. So we made our own museum there in the Sculpture Garden. We had printed and laminated copies of all the works of art we were going to see, so we sat in the green grass and  looked at the art works. For each piece, we presented a series of objects for the children to touch and engage with as we looked at the art. Here, we looked at a painting "White Ballet" while we passed around different kinds of ballet shoes.






Then we read the book, Swan Lake.

After each painting, we would turn our attention to the sculpture we were sitting by. Studying the sculpture, we used our bodies in new and different ways as we tried to re-present what we saw. We strengthened our muscles, balance and coordination as we became sculptures.  

Sometimes we worked together and sometimes we worked on our own. Here we worked together to make a super long tunnel. Children took turns crawling through...

Here we became trees!

After studying an abstract work dedicated to a choreographer, Merce C, we gave children pencils and white paper and asked them to draw "movement."

Here we are sitting under the sculpture, "Moondog."

   Looking at the painting "Corn Dance" students were given dried corn to handle and inspect. When talking about the sculpture Yeibichai Dancers with Medicine Man and Patient, children passed around feathers. After comparing and contrasting these two works, we read a story, Dancing with the Indians by renowned children's author Angela Shelf Medearis. In simple but lovely sing-song language it  tells the story of a girl who's grandfather escaped slavery and joined the Seminole Indian Tribe. He returns once a year for several nights of special dancing. As we read the story we would stop to act out different dances. This was our last stop and we soon after caught a waiting and empty bus for a nice ride back to school.This sudden and delightful plan B of a trip, was made possible with the invaluable help of our intrepid co-opers Henry's dad Chris Mills and Cameron's Nana, Candy; also, with the help of a flexible and walk-hearty crew of children and, last but not least, with help from the amazing sunshine which truly made the experience into a beautiful oops! 

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For more on the use of objects in young children's Art experiences:

http://www.albanyinstitute.org/mli/objectlearning.htm

http://www.ket.org/arttoheart/program5/smithsonian.htm