To celebrate completing our latest read-aloud, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, we created our own pretend Metropolitan Museum of Art right in Mrs. Jarvis’s classroom.  In the book, Claudia and her brother run away from home and live in the MMA.  While they are there, they connect with a mysterious angel sculpture, hunting down clues to find out its story.

Today we invited two marvelous artists to share their work with us. We saw a variety of types of art and heard the stories behind them.  We learned that artists practice a long time, often beginning at a very young age.  Mrs. Jarvis explained how instrumental some of her family members were in helping her develop as an artist, for her elementary school did not have an art program.  She allowed us to look at some of her work from long ago and compare it to some of her work recently.  A student asked Mr. McFarland how long it took to create one of his sketches, and he shared a quote that a sketch might take “five minutes plus twenty years.”  What do you think that means?  Does it match our growth mindset thinking?

One of my favorite moments was hearing that the inspiration for one of Mr. McFarland’s works was Euclid!  He brought in a very old geometry book and explained the thinking path that led to the gorgeous pastel we were viewing.  Not only is math everywhere, but how wonderful to know that our passions in one area of study can benefit another area.  Connections!

Finally, we each browsed through art books hunting for a work of art that connected to our own heart.  We wrote about why we loved that particular piece.  Stay tuned to the student blogs to read all about it!