Art

We visited the Montclair Art Museum this week. A few years ago when we first started going to the museum Dakota hated it. As we left the museum he turned to me and said, :That place was sooooooooooooooo verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. He never wanted to go again. But we kept going every month. Now, nearly four years later, he gets so excited when I tell him that it is homeschool day at the art museum. He loves going to see what Ms. Peggy is going to talk about. And he loves painting. Today we went to the Beczak Environmental Center where he was able to paint again. Today, they studied mammals that live in the Hudson River. They made beaver masks as part of the class. I think this is one of his favorite things to do now. He still does not like to color, but he loves painting. Now we are looking for other sources of homeschool art education. Fortunately, now that he is doing fourth grade language arts, they have added art education to his curriculum. I can't wait to get started on this great program to see how he likes it. He says he wants to be an astronaut who paints like Alan Bean.

One of the things that Dakota likes to do is to draw a picture and then write a story about the picture. I found a notebook that has a blank top half of the page and lines on the bottom half. This allows him to draw and write all on the same paper. He gets great practice with homeschool writing this way.

We've had a great time this week, painting and writing. Hope you've had a great week as well.