Sculpture in the Park

Ever since we painted in the park, I’ve been anxious to get back there to enjoy the sculpture with my kiddos.

Before to going to the park, we read a book about the sculpture of Alexander Calder.

As a side note, my kiddos and I have enjoyed reading many of these “Getting to know the World’s Greatest Artist” books. In fact, after we returned home from this sculpture experience, I came across “The World’s Greatest Artists Unit Study, Vol 1″ that Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler has put together and is so generously offering as a free download! We’ll be using this to guide our next artistic adventure!

When we arrived in at the park, we grabbed a brochure about the park’s permanent sculpture exhibit and went on a self guided tour.

Then we found the perfect spot under a tree for a snack break! I gave the kids each a bag I’d packed of pretzel sticks, cheerios, mini M&Ms, marshmallows (we happened to have regular, flat stackers, and mini), and peanut butter. By the way, did you realize that the word “EAT” is found in the middle of ”CREATE”? I didn’t until I happened to package up their snacks this way!

So, while they created their own edible works of art, I read Sandy’s Circus to them, which is a biography of Alexander Calder.

Next we played a sculpture game using model magic. I’d made a dozen cards containing both words and pictures of things that you’d find at the sculpture park. Some of them were things found in the actual sculptures themselves, and others were just things found in nature.