The National Gallery of Art

Hello again families! Today, the class took a tour of the National Gallery of Art. Here, we discovered many historical paintings from many different times in the world. It was fun to try and interpret the art and figure out which time periods they were from. Everyone had their own ideas of what the art meant and what it was trying to portray!

The artist we spent the most time looking at was Tony Smith. He is known for his three dimensional sculptures and interesting designs. After learning more about him and his history, it was plain to see how he discovered his calling as an artist (ask your students for more info, or visit this site). With this, we took a closer look at his artwork and discovered the vast amount of geometrical figures that he bases his art off of. From here, we did a lesson on geometry and polygons, because many of his artworks contain hidden polygons in them! The students had a fun time learning about this on the NGA's website which contained many activities that had to do with Tony Smith and his art. They then got to make their own geometric work of art and shared them with the class! Ask your child about all of the new vocabulary and shapes they learned about!