Mommio: Art Class- Impressionists- Rodin

Today we started our study of Impressionist sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917, France).

We learned from our lesson in Artistic Pursuits (Book Three) that Rodin (pronounced roh DAN) was known for breaking away from the traditional methods and subjects of sculpture during his time.  He was greatly inspired by the work of Michelangelo from the 1500's in which he left his sculptures partially unfinished in the stone he was carving from.  Rodin thought that the viewer should be able to see how his sculptures were made- so he left his fingerprints in the clay.  He also did sculptures of common people who were alive during his time, this was a new idea and was greatly rejected by art critics.  We were able to see many of his sculptures by watching this video.

Afterwards we talked about what the kids thought of his sculptures and what common themes they saw throughout his work.  They noticed: a lot of men, heads, hands, heads were always turned, people sitting, nudity, he liked to add a lot of details like veins and muscles.  One of the things that Rodin was particularly interested in was the human hand.  He made several series of hand sculptures, and even in his full bodied sculptures he paid special attention to the hands.

 Over the next few art classes we will be doing a series of art based on our own hands and work up to a final clay hand sculpture.  Today we started with the basics- tracing the hand and talking about the shape, then creating a piece of art with our traced hands.  This was based on a series of hand art lessons we found here.  The kids each got a large sheet of white paper and traced their hands onto the paper in any layout they chose.

 Next, they used black fine point markers to trace the hand shape and fill in their hands with doodles and words that represent their personalities.

 When their hands were filled in, they colored in the background using watercolor paints.

 Here they are- each of the kids personalities reflected in their own hands!

 Next time, we will learn more about Rodin and use the same lesson plans to make wire sculptures of our hands.

Lakeside Academy (Nov. 28th): Weather

Another wonderful day with our friends at Lakeside Academy!  We learned all about weather and the water cycle this week-- which was perfect timing since we all woke up to an unusually cold morning and ice on our windshields.  We started out with circle time and the normal routine that the kids love.  Here's a little clip of a few of the kids doing show and tell- Josephine is pretty quiet but she still had lots to say!

 We did a little interactive version of the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk and then we read Weather, a short book of facts about different types of weather.  Then we learned all about the water cycle by looking at this graphic and learning some really big words.

To help them better understand these concepts we used a humidifier so they could see it in action.  They saw the evaporation with their eyes and then put their hands over the top to feel the condensation collect on their palms.  They all learned that the water we drink, bathe in and swim in is REALLY, REALLY old...like it's been here forever.  All day they asked for "old water" to drink- very cute!

For cooking we challenged ourselves to make rainbow cookies.  We were not really sure they would turn out like the pictures we saw- but they did- perfectly.  First we made sugar cookie dough (just using packaged dough mix).  The kids all enjoyed putting the ingredients in the bowl then watching the super mixer do the work.

We divided the dough into 8 balls and gave one to each child- then they each got a color (we used gel food coloring) to add to their dough.  They played with their dough, just like playdough, until the color was worked all the way into it.

The grown up part came next- we rolled each ball out into a snake, stacked them and pressed them down.  Then wrapped in plastic wrap to put in the fridge for a while.

Later, we sliced them (just like the dough you get in tubes) and baked.  Didn't they turn out beautiful? We were ALL very impressed!

After a lunch break and a little play time outside we moved on to art time.  First we made weather wheels using paper plates, glue, crayons and scissors.

Then we made some small rain shakers to use during our music and movement time.

When art was all cleaned up we had time for music.  We started out by honoring the sun with yoga sun salutations.  We sang a few songs next, Itsy Bitsy Spider and If All The Raindrops Were Lemondrops And Gumdrops.  And finally we got to the really fun part- we made a thunderstorm using our hands (rubbing and clapping), our legs (hitting them), our rain shakers (shake, shake, shake), some drums (thunder) and our voices (howling winds).  They kids enjoyed this so much we did many rounds of it, our last storm was so powerful we even had a tornado.
The rest of our time together was spent outside playing, swinging, drawing with chalk and having a great big SNOWBALL FIGHT!