the roarks: National Gallery of Art "Stories in Art"

We are getting to enjoy all of the free perks of living in DC already...

Elijah went to the Navy Yard last week for a class on building models

(he went with a friend so I don't have pics)

and today we went to the National Gallery of Art for one of their programs.

On Wednesday it's supposed to be 65, so we are going to the DC Zoo!

I was so, so impressed by the art program today.

They read a book by Eric Carle, 'The Little Cloud" and talked about shapes and colors of clouds.

Then they observed different paintings in the Dutch section of the museum

and drew conclusions about the paintings based on the clouds.

The Docent did such a wonderful job of asking questions on their level,

yet at the same time, teaching them brand new things they've never heard of.

They learned about seascapes and landscapes, backgrounds and foregrounds...

it was just superb.

(This is right up your alley, Grandad and Me!

When you retire, you need to come here to be a docent and give tours for children.)

I did a swap with a friend and she kept Emmaline with her two year old, Helen,

and I took her 5 and 6 year old with us. Perfect.

We met our Docent and followed her to a little spot where she filled them in on what we'd be doing.

These are all children from Elijah and/or Hudson's learning group.

We have school on Tues, Thurs and Fri, so we often do fun things on Mon/Wed as a group.

(Some families didn't come, so this isn't everyone.)

The little girl by Elijah is in Hudson's class and she had on a princess dress and Crocs snow boots.

LOVED it.

You'll notice a pattern of seeing Elijah's hand in the air.

He's come a long way from his bashful days.

He answered every.single.question.

Thankfully he always raised his hand, and he didn't blurt out answers, but I know the Docent was trying so hard to let others answer, but no one else was raising their hand!

And here's Hudson telling her what he thinks the rules of the museum are:

no running,

no breaking the "black statues"

(yes, I realize that sounds so racist but there was a statue right near us),

and no touching things.

Can you tell that I gave them "the talk" before going in?

Then we headed into the room of Dutch painters and the Docent read the book.

Yes, Elijah...we know you know every answer.

There he goes again.

And now it's Elijah AND Hudson. Geeez.

I know, I know...I was the exact same way. Stop laughing, Mom.

Elijah commented that he thought this might be at sunset because of the bright spot in the bottom corner.

I have to admit, he really blew me away with his insightful observations.

They are observing the landscape in this one, and the "weather report"

based on the cloud colors and shapes.

This one was really fun to observe.

They talked about the stormy clouds, the ships in danger, the emotions that they may be feeling,

they moved their bodies side to side like they were tilting in one of the ships.

She asked them if there was any hope at all for the ships to be safe...or if they would sink forever.

Hudson raised his hand and said, "They might blow up!"

Ummm...typical boy answer.

Elijah then raised his hand and said, "See the sun in the corner?

The rain might stop and they will be ok."

Wowzers.

I guess it IS in his genes after all...

Then we went to another spot where they had taped paper to the floor, and the children made their own seascapes or landscapes and they were to think and make a plan before drawing...whether their picture would be sunny or stormy, cloudy or not so cloudy, etc.

First, they signed their masterpieces on the back.

Hudson drew black clouds with rain coming down.

He really thought about it first; it was so precious.

Elijah drew a pirate ship on stormy seas with big rain clouds.

See the rain?

Then they got cotton balls, and she showed them how they could pull them apart to make them stringy and thin or bunch them together and make them big and full and fluffy.