Art Class for Kids: Van Gogh

Twice a month, both Zahavah and Adrian "attend an art class" together. Given by no other than myself,  I strive to keep the class focused on one artist and I usually try to link this artist to the theme we are exploring that week. As a result, this week, we explored Vincent Van Gogh's Self-Portraits to fit in with our "All About Me" thematic. It was our first "Art class" and the children were definitely excited to see what we were going to be doing. 

Prior to the beginning of the class (given in a different room of our home), I had prepared different corners for the class: a cozy corner with pillows and books featuring Van Gogh, a Museum corner (with paintings by Van Gogh "taped" to the wall), and a creative corner (with tables, chairs and supplies). The only thing missing was indeed, the children! :)

A few books we had or borrowed for our class about Van Gogh

ENGAGING THE CHILD

We started the class in the cozy corner where I invited the children to sit on a cushion after they had had a few minutes to look around. We read together the first page of Vincent's Colors (the book itself is written by Van Gogh himself with additions by The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Although very short, it still gave us a look at Van Gogh's life. With our giant wall map, Adrian showed us where Van Gogh was born and later on lived and even pointed us the flags accompanying those nations. 

The  "Van Gogh Self-Portrait Museum"

EXPLORATION BY THE CHILD

Rather than looking at all the paintings in the books put out on the shelf next to the floor pillows, I told the children we'd visit a Van Gogh Museum filled with paintings he had painted himself. While in the "museum" (where all my selected self-portraits were at the kids' eye level), I asked the kids if they noticed anything similar about the painting. For example:

-"What are the paintings about? A man? Yes. A man called Van Gogh." I explained what a self-portrait was and even showed a real picture of young Van Gogh to compare with the paintings. "How are the paintings the same? Different?", I asked. "Were the colors used always the same for each paintings? How about the brush techniques? Did Van Gogh use some stronger brush strokes on some, some dabs on others but more of a swirl motion on certain? How's Van Gogh's expression?"

Self-portraits selected for our Museum (See them all at Arty Factory):

Van Gogh with Pipe 1886

Van Gogh with Bandaged Ear 1887

Van Gogh in a Felt Hat 1887

Van Gogh 1887 (pointillism in that one)

Van Gogh : Saint-Remy 1889

Van Gogh 1887 (some Impressionism influence seen here)

Matching Van Gogh Self-Portrais and Artists/Techniques that Influenced Van Gogh

TECHNIQUE ANALYSIS BY THE CHILD

Once our tour of the Museum was completed, we went back to the cozy corner. I handed each child two paintings by two different artists. Each of these artists had an influence on Van Gogh and had possibly influenced the outcome of the self-portraits put up in our Gallery. We looked at each painting for a minute and I explained that fact to the children. I explained how influence can show through someone's work via colors and techniques and we then ventured, paintings in hand, to match these to the self-portraits they could have influence. Adrian loved that.

Paintings used for matching activity: 

Horses, Cattle and a Farm Hand by Anton Mauve / Van Gogh with Pipe 1886

When Will you Marry Me? by Paul Gauguin / Van Gogh with Bandaged Ear 1887

 Eiffel Tower by Georges Seurat / Van Gogh 1887 (pointillism in that one)

Recolte des Foins a Eragny by Camille Pisarro / Van Gogh in a Felt Hat 1887

The Children's Rendition of a Self-Portrait "a la Van Gogh"

CREATION BY THE CHILD

Once the matchings were done, it was time for the children to let themselves BE influenced by Van Gogh. Using chalk pastels, it was their turn to draw their own self-portraits, borrowing some technique or colors from Van Gogh and of course, letting their own creativity flow as well.

ASSESSMENT BY THE CHILD

At the end of the class, I invited the children to answer a few simple questions such as: "Did you do your best today with your drawing?", "Did you use some swirls, dots, big lines or popping colors in your self-portrait like our artist liked to do?", "What is a self-portrait anyway?" and "Can you tell me the name of the artist we talked about today?".

Overall, the first art class was very much liked. I found both my children looking through the Van Gogh books later that week and wanting to read them. Our next class should focus on Cezanne and his famous apple work...

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

If you would like me to link up with you, please don't hesitate to ask, it might take me a week or two, but I generally do!

Knights, Castles and Dragons for Preschoolers - Part 1

Dragons? Yes, I hesitated grandly before coming up with a mini-unit that would include a fantasy component. After all, Dr. Montessori was not exactly known to make room for these. Part of me understands why but part of me also thinks it's sad. I find fairy tales somewhat traditional and feel like my son should at least be aware of what a dragon is. Now that he is nearing 5 years old, I feel like he is well grounded in reality and that he knows certain creatures were made up by someone else's imagination. Sure he can create his own "monsters" and most certainly the real world is big enough for a 4.5 year old to discover but I still liked the idea of incorporating a tiny bit of dragon into this thematic. Hey, doesn't the Komodo Dragon exist after all? ;)

Making old pennies can shine like new

The background story given to Adrian was that a knight wanted his shining armor to be shiny again but before handing it to us, he wanted to make sure we could make it shine. As such, we would practice on cents. Being that we are in the E.U., we used Euros but American and Canadians pennies (did you guys keep some?) will work as well and other high content copper coins from other countries would as well. You'll need some salt and vinegar. I was out of regular vinegar so I used apple-cider vinegar (thus the yellowish color in the glass) and it worked just fine. The pennies don't need to soak long at all and Adrian liked to dip for 5 seconds and check the line the solution had made on the penny before sending the coin to the bottom of the glass. For full instructions, check out the link under the 2 pictures.

Can you guess which cents were cleaned and which weren't?

Can you guess which cents were rinsed and which weren't?

Ok. So the rinsed cents did not leave any residue on the paper towel and the ones that were no rinsed sadly didn't leave much behind either. It just remained on the coins themselves...which is still cool since the cents were quite colorful when we flipped them over. Adrian thought the rinsing versus non-rinsing changed nothing at first but when he turned the coins over, THERE was a different after all! 

Instructions and extensions to this activity can be found on Exploratorium's Website. 

"Metal" working - Hammering textures in aluminum foil

Is texture rubbing popular in your house? We haven't done it here except with leaves but I thought we could do something similar with aluminum foil and a toy hammer and pretend we were working metal like in the Middle Ages. It was actually not very easy to find textures that would hammer well. We either have a very smooth home or hammering textures is much harder than rubbing them with crayons. The activity itself was still fun but I felt like I was looking for textures more than Adrian was.

Close-up of our results

"Castle and Sun" by Paul Klee

Being that we were doing a unit about the Middle Ages, I thought I'd sneak in our first Artist. About time, right? We've been doing art a lot but not appreciating it much. I am now aiming to do it once a month. For this month, I picked Paul Klee and his "Castle and Sun" painting. Adrian and I first looked at Klee's work through a slideshow at Wikipaintings.org. We discussed how he liked to use shapes and looked at the colors he liked. We talked about Klee himself and how he lived in Germany like we do. I then showed Adrian the "Castle and Sun" painting. I had printed that one. I made sure not to mention the name of the painting to Adrian and then asked him to tell me what he thought it was about. We talked about the shapes Klee used, the colors, the sizes, how he filled the frame of the picture and so on. In the end, I presented a black sheet and tray filled with pre-cut shapes. Adrian was then asked to make his own "Castle and Sun". I first saw this idea of My Montessori Journey. I saw it done with chalk too and the results are always beautiful.

Crown Jewels - Counting Gems

A little counting activity I saw on Our Montessori Home. Really easy and basic for Adrian but I didn't have enough gems to make it more challenging. The size of certain jewels made it difficult though! :) Off to buy more gems! :)

"Pin" pushing / "Slaying the Dragon"

Hmm. I didn't tell Adrian we'd be slaying the dragon actually. It sounded too violent to me so I actually told him we'd pierce the dragon's heart with a sword to turn him into a nice dragon because there was a "nice dragon" serum on the tip of the sword. :) He made sure not to miss and inserted the tip of the sword into the heart of every dragon. I found this clipart on Best Clipart Blog and the sword toothpicks at a dollar store back in the U.S.

Sharpening Jousting Lances...aka pencils

Well this was the first time Adrian sharpened a pencil. I quickly realized that 3 was way too many! :) 1 was enough and it took a while and lots of encouragement. I found it was a GREAT hand strengthening exercise though. Will have to do it again. I pretended these pencils were jousting lances in need of sharpening for the jousting tournament. Cute, eh?

Stay tuned for another post on knights, castles and dragons later this week!

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Discover and Explore, and No Time for Flashcards