Museum Friday 11/7/14

Today has been a fun filled Museum Day.  For the information of any reader....these days usually last about 2 hours.  Unfortunately for about 6 weeks this semester after I get off work at 10:30, I have to had back to co-teach a class at 1.  I love teaching the class and explaining music genres to dancers, but it doesn't leave us much time to go to any of the museums that close at 5pm.

When I got home from work at 3, I had Madalynn go grab a few of the library books we checked out a few weeks ago.  I had checked out a few artists biographies in case we didn't have time to head to a museum on Halloween or today.  While I was putting dinner in the crockpot I had her review the lessons we have had over the past two months.  She has learned about the following concepts:

Identifying/Differentiating Portraits, still lives, landscapes, photographs
Sculpture Mediums: Wood, Bronze

I ask her questions as she views things.  She asks me questions about what she sees.  Basically I see what she knows and understands and try to teach her something new.  Depending on how involved she wants to be with an exhibit determines the amount of exhibits we see.  For example, the day we went and saw the film costume exhibit at BYU we spent three hours walking through, reading all the placards and discussing fabric, colors, historical paintings on clothing, etc.  Today we saw three student exhibits at the HFAC BYU, the BYU library auditorium exhibit, the library Special Collections Exhibit and the Samari exhibit in the entrance of the library.  She got involved in the special collections exhibit and we stayed there an hour.  It was also the most interactive which tends to help a 4 yr old.

We discussed world war one in special collections.  It was an interesting conversation.  There was footage playing on a movie.  She could see them taking care of planes, dropping bombs, hiding in trenchs, etc.  The discussion of death was brought up more than once.  She looked at pictures before and after of various cathedrals that were destroyed, men that died in trenches, army vehicles, the signing of the treaty of versailles, etc.

In one of the student exhibit presesntation we talked about foreground and background in a painting.  We will review those concepts in the next few weeks.  I try and add two new words to her vocalubary of things to notice when we go places.  I will try sometime to find the video of her explaning a painting about a month ago and post it.  It was very interesting the concept of the picture and what a 4 yr old gets out of it.

HFAC BYU

The above visit is called unnoticed/perceived. This is where we talked about foreground/background.

 Some of the pictures in the Samari exhibit were from the 1400's.  So cool.  We will have to go back and really read everything sometime.  They have scanned a few of the books and there is an ipad to click through the pictures from the book.  Madalynn loved that of  course and it was fascinating.

Hope you enjoy.