Field Trip - Getty Villa

My three-year-old handling materials used to make mosaics.

I love the Getty Villa. The architecture is based on an ancient Roman villa, and it has an inner peristyle garden, an outer peristyle garden, an herb garden, and a gorgeous view of the Pacific. The villa is filled with 44,000 Greek and Roman antiquities.

Our first stop was the Reading Room to learn about Byzantine mosaic-making in an intimate, hands-on setting.

My tour of the special exhibit - the Art of Byzantium - was short. My daughter was on Day Four of museum-going, and she wanted to play in the Family Forum and take a walk outside. So, we did.

Dressed as a gladiator

Slaying a gorgon

She insisted on carrying a "parasol" in the villa's garden.

Making a crayon rubbing

Field Trip - Getty Center

My three-year-old creating an illuminated manuscript with dry erase markers

 The Getty Center has an amazing collection of art. This is a link to the collection website; click "Browse" and you get the option of browsing by object/medium OR theme/topic OR artist name. After seeing Degas' Dancer Taking A Bow, and Van Gogh's Irises, we spent some time in the Family Room.

Building a tube sculpture

Inspired by a David Hockney photo collage - Pearblossom Hwy

The Family Room is neat because little ones get to participate in the art, making masks, moving magnets and mirrors, constructing a sculpture, peeping into 70 tiny holes to view paintings, tracing insects, illuminating a manuscript, or curling up in a 18th century French bed with a bedtime story. (The link is to the real bed that inspired the little one in the Family Room.)

Taking a break with a cherry juice bar - Yum!

At the Getty, you pay for parking, but admission is free, and you can bring your own food and picnic.

Yes, you can walk on the grass.

Something we didn't get a chance to do (but I want to next time) is visit the Sketching Gallery.

Field Trip - LACMA

My three-year-old playing in the "noodles."

Painting in the Boone Children's Gallery

Yesterday my family visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We saw a special exhibit - Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Expressionism in Germany and France. Having been to museums in Europe, I've seen a lot of famous works of art (including the Barnes Collection, which is now in Philadelphia). I love coming face to face with a Matisse or a Gauguin. I feel almost like I'm experiencing something I shouldn't, like these images are reserved for books, but I - me! - I get to see the real paintings, every brush stroke or pointillist point. The exhibit was wonderful.

How does one take a three-year-old to an exhibit on expressionism? And, some might ask, why should you? To answer the second question first, you should because being viewing art in person is a habit that must be trained, just like picture study/viewing copies of paintings.

The three rules of HOW are:
1)Hands-on
2)On to the next painting!
3)What...?

Rule #1 - Take frequent breaks. Museums often have hands-on things for little ones to do. Do them.

Rule #2 - Keep it moving. Look for 1 element in a painting and move on to the next painting.

Rule #3 - Ask questions (but only 1 per painting). What shape are those apples? What is that man doing? What color is that woman's skin? (An especially good question for Fauvist works.)

We also visited James Turrell's exhibit "Breathing Light." We had to wait hours, but it was such a weird and enjoyable experience. Turrell's objective was to eliminate the viewer's depth perception, and it works. It's a bit like stepping into a scene from the original - good - Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the one in which the factory guests dress in white and enter the white TV room where Mike Teavee is turned into particles, etc. To enter "Breathing Light," we had to take off our shoes and put on disposable white booties. I had to tie the one-size-fits-all booties around my three-year-old's feet. Then we entered the installation and the lights started changing colors and it became disorienting, but in a pleasant sort of way. Fun for all ages.

My daughter also enjoyed the Boone Children's Gallery. Kids can sit and paint all day if they want, and there is no limit to how many paintings they can make.

Lastly, LACMA has a program called NexGen. Children under 18 get a free membership (and a cool orange lanyard to wear that holds their membership badge). Their membership enables one parent to accompany them to the museum for free, and it's good until the child turns 18!

Field Trip - California Science Center

My three-year-old driving a snow mobile in the Arctic.

Building an arch after touring the Pompeii exhibit.

Listening to sound waves vibrating*

The California Science Center has so much to see and do - and admission is free! There are Ecosystems (where my daughter got to "drive" the snowmobile), and Creative World - which includes Communications (where we listened to sound waves), Structures, Transportation, and more. There is World of Life (which we didn't even get to because there is just so much to see!) with Body Works, Cell Lab, Life Source (which has a chick hatchery! among other exhibits pertaining to babies, genes, reproduction, and development) and more, more, more. My husband would have liked to spend more time in Air and Space, and my daughter liked the space telescopes. The main reason we went to the Science Center was to see the special exhibit on Pompeii.

How does one tour an exhibit on Pompeii with a three-year-old? 

1)Answer your child's questions, but don't feel the need to give background information. (Example: It isn't necessary to tell your child that a volcano erupted and killed everyone, and that you're looking at plaster casts of dead bodies. If your child does ask what something is, you can ask, "What does it look like?" and let your child answer their own question, or you can give a preschool-friendly answer like, "It's the shape of a person," and your preschooler will probably be satisfied and on to the next thing. Besides, there is A LOT more to see than plaster casts. The casts are just a fraction of what there is to see.

2)DO tell your child your expectations for behavior before you enter. ("Hold my hand or Daddy's hand at all times.")

3)Do prepare your child for anything that might be sensory overload (too loud, too dark, etc.) by saying things like, "We're going to see a pretend volcano erupt. It's going to be loud, so you might want to cover your ears."

4)Make the tour a game. If there is something that resembles an item you have in your home, an everyday object, ask your child if she can find it. (Example: "Do you see something that looks like something we have in our kitchen?") If your child can count, ask how many of the same item he can find (Example: How many fish do you see?). Look for shapes. Look for colors. Ask your child what she thinks artifacts are made from (gold, clay, wood, rock, etc.).

*The shorter the tube, the higher the frequency and the higher the pitch.

Ziploc Baggie Ice Cream

Today was my day to host our home(pre)school group. My intention was for the kids to play in the park's splash pad, make our own ice cream, and read "Summer" from Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad All Year (in which Toad buys Frog and himself chocolate ice cream cones but winds up with the ice cream - and sticks and leaves - all over him).

Toad as an ice cream "thing"

We did not get around to the story, but the ice cream was a success!

If you haven't done this, DO. Here's how:
1)Get two sandwich sized Ziploc baggies and put one inside the other. (I recommend double-bagging so salt doesn't get on the baggie with the ice cream in it, or so as little salt as possible gets on the ice cream baggie.)
2)Put 1/2 cup of milk in the inner baggie. (I've done this with both 1 percent and whole milk. You can also do this with heavy cream or half and half, and I'm guessing nonfat would work too. It just depends how rich you want to make your ice cream.)
3)Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
4)Put the sandwich sized baggies inside a gallon Ziploc.
5)Put 6 tablespoons of salt in the bag and cover the "ice cream" with ice cubes. (One recipe said 4 cups, but the important thing is to cover the "ice cream." Also, I've done this with both sea salt and rock salt, and both work. Any salt will work, but recipes recommend larger crystals.)
6)Put on your oven mitts (or mittens, or socks on your hands - it gets REALLY cold) and shake until the ice cream solidifies. Some recipes say five minutes. One try, I shook for exactly 6 1/2 minutes and that worked (I watched the stopwatch on my phone). The important thing is to shake until the ice cream feels really hard. (The salt will turn the ice into brine and saltwater will drip out of the bag, so doing this outside is a really good idea.)
7)Take the sandwich-sized baggies out. If you have ice water nearby to rinse the outer baggie, do. If not, it's okay. Carefully take out the inner baggie. You'll taste a tiny bit of salt, but the ice cream will still be good; one mom suggested adding a tiny bit of caramel sauce to the inner baggie for a "salted caramel" treat -Yum.
8)You can add a small amount of chocolate sauce or strawberry topping (or caramel sauce), or any other mix-in to the baggie, seal, and give it an extra couple of squishes.
9)Squeeze the ice cream into a waffle cone. Top with sprinkles (or your favorite topping). Enjoy.

(This makes one serving.)

The average freezing point (also called the melting point) of milk is -.54 degrees Celsius (which is 31.028 degrees Fahrenheit). The freezing point of milk is just a tiny bit lower than the freezing point of water (0 degrees Celsius/32 degrees Fahrenheit), so you need salt's help. Salt lowers the temperature. For a chemistry lesson on why salt lowers the freezing point of water (including an animation) click here.

Your Child is an Artist #2

A circle and line person my daughter drew a couple of months ago (2 years old)

In my last post, I wrote about Arthur Zaidenberg's Your Child is an Artist (1949).

Zaidenberg suggested children be given LOTS of (inexpensive) art materials, "lots of paper and many pots of paint and a wide variety of pencils and crayons for he will be induced to experimental and uninhibited productivity by a relatively unlimited supply." (pg. 60)

Zaidenberg's Basic Materials List:

pencils (drawing #2-#5; assorted colored pencils)

poster colors (a set of jars of paints)

water color set

brushes (5 in different sizes, "large brushes...will encourage him toward freedom of expression")

crayons (assorted colors; Zaidenberg suggested grease crayons; I use oil pastels in my classroom)

chalk (Zaidenberg suggested large flat pastels)

paper (large sheets of drawing paper and watercolor paper)

drawing board 24" x 36"

a child's easel

water jars, muffin pan for mixing, paint rags

~

SKETCH HABITS

"Habits are also most readily formed in childhood and once acquired are never a chore but part of a behavior pattern."

"The presentation of the first sketch book, preferably a bound one, should be made a significant occasion and each subsequent book should represent a step in the child's progress to be treasured."

"Persuade him to have a small sketch book with him at all times, to be filled with a rough record of all his adventures and the drawn details of their settings." (pg. 63)

Your Child Is An Artist

I've been looking through Arthur Zaidenberg's Your Child Is An Artist (copyright 1949), and have found some quotes I love and want to share...

"It only requires an examination of the lives of our friends and acquaintances to find comparison material for a study of the worth of a wholely 'utilitarian' education, i.e. one devoted to the study of such objects as will fit one into a successful career in business or science exclusively, as against an education which not only produces the competent, useful man but brings forth the man himself, in his richest potential, creative and appreciative of creation, able to express his emotions and understand the emotional expression of others." (32-33)

"It is my contention that this language [art], native to every child, lost in the inadequate educational process, can be reacquired." (33)

"The Austrian, Dr. Cizek, was among the first to introduce the theory that the teaching of art to children was a process of encouragement of the use of an instinctive language to be intuitively learned." (39) Adults tend to praise children based on how realistic their drawings are, and how they've gotten "better" at drawing something realistically.

"Parents should present their children with pencils, colored crayons and colored chalks at the earliest possible age, even at the risk of damage to the wallpaper." (59)

"One cannot teach drawing to a child...One can only prepare him to teach himself by supplying him with the tools, stimulating his interest, acquainting him with the importance of art and leading him on the natural graduated stages of his growth process into more and subtler artistic creation." (59) The author does suggest improving manual dexterity, mental dexterity, correcting misuse of materials, suggesting a child follow a path in which he or she showed an early aptitude.

"The 'don'ts' must prevent you from surrounding him with bad pictures in his home, suggesting second-rate pictures to copy and praising work of bad taste because they are 'popular' and done by 'successful' men." (59) No visual twaddle.