Our First Field Trip

Our much anticipated trip to the Jerry Pinkney exhibit finally arrived on Friday morning. There was so much excitement about riding the bus, I think we could have gone anywhere and been completely enthralled! Fortunately, we had a wonderful morning planned at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our first stop was the Candy Coated Wonderland exhibit.  A vibrant display by a local artist using fabric and clothing on child-like fabric figures posed into a variety of scenes.  When asked what they thought this artist liked, the students responded, "bright colors, clothes, glittery, shiny things, cats, and children." They were looking and noticing!  They even began noticing articles of clothing that they were wearing that they decided the artist would love.  To get a sense of dressing a mannequin, the children got to slide their arms into a lightweight fabric sleeve.

Next, we went into a room with a blue broken line on the floor that we were invited to follow around the room to see toys and games created by people from all around the world.  It was fun to create shadow puppets in one area of the display.  The students were then given papers and pencils and asked to trace around their hands.  They brainstormed ways that they use their hands and were challenged to draw things inside of their tracings that used the same idea as a wallpaper display created for a child's room. Perhaps they could tell you about it.

And, "Finally!," as one child remarked, we were off to see Jerry Pinkney's artwork!  The children compared the paintings on the walls with the pictures in his books and noticed how they were mostly the same with some slight variations.  It was fun to recognize his amazing paintings that we had seen in the books that we'd read.  Our final activity was to create a simple quilt using felt squares that related to the book, The Patchwork Quilt.

I loved that we were able to visit the museum.  It was great to be able to expose the students to this kind of a cultural experience where they have the opportunity to practice different behaviors that are merited by being in such an establishment as the Art Museum.  It was a bit of a challenge to be quiet, and listen, and not touch things, as five year olds would naturally prefer to be doing the exact opposite.  The children did a remarkable job visiting three exhibits for over an hour.  They had the opportunity to see three very different types of exhibits, with different art mediums in each.  And how cool to see toys and games as artwork!!  I am glad for the richness of the experience they had in the museum and they were thrilled to see the BUS arrive when we exited!

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