Friday's Fine Arts
Since I have been feeling really guilty about skipping out on our fine arts studies, today I figured we would make a day of it. The other day at the library I came across a picture book called Seurat and La Grande Jatte by Robert Burleigh. It looked interesting and since he is an artist we have not studied yet I checked it out. Well lo and behold last night while watching the Weather channel - don't laugh at me here! :) - they had a segment on a topiary garden in Columbus, Ohio that is totally based on this painting! It is so cool when things work together!!! I went online and found this site about the garden which is amazing.
http://www.topiarygarden.org/default.htm
When Kate got home from school she told Josh about the painting because she had seen it when she visited The Art Institute of Chicago.
I LOVE it when learning connections happen without even trying!
We also started reading the historical fiction book called The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood. In it a young boy is ordered by his master to steal Shakespeare's play Hamlet... or else. Josh and I have read versions of this play in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb and also E. Nesbit's Beautiful Stories from Shakepeare. Both of these are retellings for children that are very well done. Nesbit's versions can be found online here:
http://www.worldwideschool.org
enter library, click on shakespeare, then click on Beautiful Stories
while Lamb's versions can be found here:
http://www.eldritchpress.org/cml/tfs.html
We have also enjoyed Bruce Coville's retellings of some of Shakespeare's plays.
We read Hamlet last year and so I ask Josh to tell me what he remembered about it. I was amazed at how much of the story line he still knows. Right now he says he does not like the book much because it is very somber. The boy is an orphan and is given to people who don't have his best interest at heart but this prompted a good discussion about how things were in that time period. Lauren has read this book and the sequel that comes after it and really enjoyed them so we will see how it is as we continue to read.
All in all I'd say we had a fairly artistic day!
Barb
http://www.topiarygarden.org/default.htm
When Kate got home from school she told Josh about the painting because she had seen it when she visited The Art Institute of Chicago.
I LOVE it when learning connections happen without even trying!
We also started reading the historical fiction book called The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood. In it a young boy is ordered by his master to steal Shakespeare's play Hamlet... or else. Josh and I have read versions of this play in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb and also E. Nesbit's Beautiful Stories from Shakepeare. Both of these are retellings for children that are very well done. Nesbit's versions can be found online here:
http://www.worldwideschool.org
enter library, click on shakespeare, then click on Beautiful Stories
while Lamb's versions can be found here:
http://www.eldritchpress.org/cml/tfs.html
We have also enjoyed Bruce Coville's retellings of some of Shakespeare's plays.
We read Hamlet last year and so I ask Josh to tell me what he remembered about it. I was amazed at how much of the story line he still knows. Right now he says he does not like the book much because it is very somber. The boy is an orphan and is given to people who don't have his best interest at heart but this prompted a good discussion about how things were in that time period. Lauren has read this book and the sequel that comes after it and really enjoyed them so we will see how it is as we continue to read.
All in all I'd say we had a fairly artistic day!
Barb
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