Monet is Cheering Our Days

It has been over a month since I have written. A. Very. Long. Month.

This past winter the cold has forced us indoors more than I would like. However,our recent study on Claude Monet filled our learning area with beauty and cheered our days.

I started our Monet adventure by printing a variety of his paintings from the Claude Monet Gallery website. (Transferring them to a Word document allowed me to customize the size.) Then we hung the pictures on our little clothesline at the desks. This worked out very well as my boys (ages 8 and 5) absorbed the painings and would talk about them throughout the day and occasionally make up stories about what is going on in rhe painting.

We also read Who Was Monet. I read the book first so I could offer open-ended questions as Aidan narrated what he learned after each chapter. The Who Was /What Was books are great for the third grade level being factual and filled wirh compelling details.

Aidan also made his own masterpiece. 

First,  we used painters tape to tape down watercolor paper then using the wet-on-wet technique, he painted it blue. Meanwhile, I cut out tissue paper lily pads and wrapped little bits of pink, white, and yellow tissue paper around a pencil eraser to make little flowers. After the paint dried, he glued on the lily pads and flowers. Voila - Monet's lilly pads.

Toward the end of our Monet studies, we wentto the National Gallery In Washington DC to see original paintings. What a wonderful experience for us all!

Thank you Monet for cheering our days.