School Readiness Art Museum

Our school readiness classes are spending time learning about museums this month.  I started this activity a few years ago when we did not have the funding to take any field trips.  Instead of traveling to a museum, we would create an art museum in our classroom! I am so impressed with my students' imaginative creations.  They take a box full of random collage materials and transform the items into actual works of art complete with a title and artist description.  This week, we are talking about color.  One of our books is "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll Walsh.  This book is a great introduction to primary and secondary colors.  After reading through it, we do a colored water experiment to test out color mixing.  Each child records the results in their own take-home book.  I was pleased to witness almost all of my students following directions, staying on task and participating in our discussion.  I hope they will use their book to practice their colors at home and recall the “Mouse Paint” story for their family.  In addition their creation making, we spend time talking about art appreciation (how to comment on art, how to describe what you see and how to respect art that you might not like or understand).  We also talk about other types of museums, including children’s museums, history museums and science museums.  My students have enjoyed finding dinosaur bones in our archeological dig site (our sensory table filled with sand, sifters, shovels, brushes and plastic bones).  At the end of our unit, we open our doors to the public for a Museum Gallery Show.  We invite family, friends, other classes, teachers and administrators to come see our fabulous creations.  It is a great culminating activity that everyone enjoys!