Art Inspired Wednesday

April 3, 2013

This morning the children filled the classroom with activity, each center was visited and worked through as the Cardinals moved individually or in groups. Today's energy continued to expand on our artistic side with some continuation of a project inspired by the photographs in the book Circles, Triangles and Squares by Tana Hoban. The children looked at the interesting photographs of shapes in all parts of our world.  All of the photographs were taken with black and white film highlighting shapes in the world. It you have a moment, stop by to look at this photo book of shapes or check it out on -line.   The children selected a photograph that inspired them and then used a variety of collage materials to interpret the shapes and pictures.      

We introduced a new artist today, Piet Mondrian. We learned that this Dutch , abstract painter dedicated his work to painting nothing but vertical and horizontal rectangles and lines, their colors limited to black, white , and gray and the primaries red, blue and yellow.

We cut 3/4 inch strips of black paper and demonstrated how we could create art that is inspired by Mondrian's style and concepts.  This was an ideal artist to look at as this form of art connects our study of shapes in such a natural way.

Outdoor Play

Over Spring Break, Xander traveled to Switzerland. Today, he brought with him a present of Swiss chocolate for all his Cardinal classmates and shared some of the fun things he did with his family on vacation. The children listened attentively and asked interesting questions, such as "How do you ski down a mountain", of their friend's travels.