St. Louis Art Museum

2017-18 School Year–Week Three

It was another busy week of school!

We are in a fairly comfortable routine now. The teacher is still working on handling everything for three different grades, but I’m getting it figured out. Surprisingly, religion has been one of the hardest things for me to learn how to balance. Turkey and Bunny do all their Bible readings on their own, but we then discuss all the questions from the lesson together. Meanwhile, I still read the stories (from two different books) out loud to both Ladybug and Chickadee, in addition to going through the questions for each with them. Sometimes, I can’t keep up with who I’m talking to at any given moment, but we’re managing.

Math has continued to go well. Turkey and Bunny have gotten into some new stuff in geometry, but they’re picking it up quickly, and they both like it. Ladybug has been reviewing fractions and decimals, and Chickadee is working on counting higher. She has some trouble after fourteen…she always wants to skip straight to sixteen, and I think it’s because she ignores fifteen because it’s not pronounced “five-teen!”

Ladybug has really been enjoying science. She learned all about different kinds of dogs this week, including wolves, jackals, and dingoes. Turkey and Bunny had their first test (both received As!), and are now learning about the kingdom of Monera. They’re looking forward to getting out the microscope soon, and seeing what kind of weird stuff lives in the ponds around here!

Today we took a field trip. There has been a men’s fashion exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum (Reigning Men), that I had wanted to see, but almost forgot about. Fortunately, they offer free tickets on Fridays, so we were able to get in at no cost before it leaves town. Since we’re all learning about ancient Egypt right now, we also stopped to see the galleries dedicated to Egypt while we were there.

We don’t have any big plans next week, but we are attending a Japanese Festival this weekend, and hopefully we’ll learn something while we’re there!

The Hats of Stephen Jones

In addition to the Degas exhibit, which is wrapping up soon, the St. Louis Art Museum just began a fun new millinery-focused exhibit last week…one that is something of a scavenger hunt!

“The Hats of Stephen Jones” is a display of eight whimsical hats designed by contemporary British milliner Stephen Jones, which are scattered throughout levels one and two of the museum. Some of the hats come with a bit of fame, including one that was worn by the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, Miss Pippa Middleton! You don’t have to work too awfully hard to find the hats, as you can get a list of the galleries that are home to these wonderful millinery creations, but the search may encourage you to visit parts of the museum that you don’t normally see, or haven’t seen in a long time, which is a win in my book!

Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade

The St. Louis Art Museum has a special exhibit which will soon be coming to a close: “Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade.” I hadn’t realized that it had so little time left, and we almost missed our chance to go. We got tickets to see it last week, for the “Free Friday” event, and it was quite impressive!

As you might expect, there are works by Degas on display. There are also by paintings by some of his friends and contemporaries, as well: Renoir, Cassatt, and Manet were included.

While the bulk of the exhibit focused on women’s hats, as you might expect, there was also an area dedicated to the different styles of men’s headwear.

There were quite a few actual hats on display, as well. I was impressed by how well they’ve held up over the years!

There was a small area of hat-making materials that you could touch…the children really enjoyed that! The feathers were especially popular!

We even saw a doll who had a selection of tiny hats!

This was a fantastic exhibit. I think Bunny and I could have spent all day admiring the paintings and the hats (although I think Turkey would have been happy had we hurried along a bit). There were even children’s books scattered throughout, and Chickadee enjoyed hearing me read an old favorite and a new story to her while we there. The exhibit will be in town through May 7, and I highly recommend taking a tour!

2016-17 School Year–Week Twenty-Nine

These last few weeks of the school year are so crazy!

Thankfully, math has been easy. Turkey and Bunny have been working with the Pythagorean Theorem, which is not totally new to them, so that was a simple set of lessons. Ladybug has continued to work with metric conversions, which she mostly has the hang of, so that hasn’t been problematic, either.

Ladybug finished her study of Greek Myths in literature. She can spend the last few weeks of the school year listening to me read for fun! Turkey and Bunny have finished another act in As You Like It…the one with possibly the most quotable line: “All the world’s a stage…”

Our history lessons have focused primarily around the former USSR, particularly their relations with the Middle East. We have also learned about terrorism, which I guess isn’t really new to anyone these days, but we focused on organizations like the PLO and the IRA in our studies.

Turkey and Bunny have continued learning about the forces of nature in science. They were very excited that their studies took them to outer space this week, as we learned about the solar system. We also discussed the difference between planets and dwarf planets, and why Pluto is no longer classified as a planet. Ladybug has been learning more about jellyfish, as well as sea anemones in her science lessons.

Chickadee has continued to enjoy listening to me read Beezus and Ramona. We also took some time today to visit the St. Louis Art Museum. We finally got to tour the “Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade” exhibit, which is wrapping up its time in St. Louis. While we were there, I had the opportunity to read Chickadee one of her favorite books, Caps for Sale, as well as a new story to us, Madeline and the Bad Hat. I love that they scatter children’s books related to the exhibit throughout! We were also there for the very first day of “The Hats of Stephen Jones” exhibit, which is like a scavenger hunt through the museum…very fun!

This was a very busy week, and we have about four more of those to go before we finish the school year! I hope I can continue to find fun things to mix in with our work!

St. Louis Modern

Today we visited the St. Louis Art Museum to see the St. Louis Modern exhibition before it closes at the end of the month. This is normally a paid exhibition, but the museum has a “Free Fridays” program where you can request up to six free tickets!

There wasn’t much photography allowed, but I did get a picture of the corvette they have displayed at the entrance to the exhibition:

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And we got to have a hands-on experience in creating our own mid-century modern designs…it was very fun!

We also got to try out this very comfortable mid-century modern chair!

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There were many other cool things to see. Quite a bit of furniture, including chairs, desks, tables, and lamps, art, photographs of architecture, textiles, an awesome radio, dinnerware…even a small-scale model of the Gateway Arch! My favorite part of the exhibition was an Emil Frei stained glass window…how I wanted to take a picture of it!

The children didn’t really have a grasp on what constituted mid-century modern design before our visit today, but after walking through the galleries, they’ve decided we should add some mid-century elements to our home!

We are very fortunate to have such a great and free art museum so close to home!

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The Apotheosis of St. Louis

When we were at the St. Louis Art Museum in Forest Park this morning, I happened to look up at the famous “Apotheosis of St. Louis” statue, and noticed that it looked like Saint Louis had a halo. It seemed rather fitting for a man who has achieved Sainthood!

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Chickadee Thursday

Today, we spent the morning at the St. Louis Art Museum. Chickadee had fun seeing all of the beautiful art inside, and she also loved the outside, especially the fountain at the sculpture garden terrace!

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2014-15 School Year–Week Seven

Whew! It’s been another busy week! In a lot of ways, though, it was actually pretty easy. Turkey and Bunny have moved on to geometry in math, which they both like and breeze through. They also really enjoyed getting a chance to use their protractors, so it was a good math week for them! Ladybug has been working on counting by eights, and adding three-digit numbers with carrying, which she seems to have mastered.

We abandoned our history studies this week so we could really focus on The Hobbit. We’ve met the dragon now, and nobody wanted to stop reading this week. I figured since we were slightly ahead of where we’re supposed to be in history, taking a week off wouldn’t hurt!

We wrapped up study of fruit in science. Even I learned a lot about the different types of fleshy and dry fruit…it’s very interesting! The children are wanting to try some more exotic fruits just so they can see what the inside looks like, so it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I think we’re going to try to find a star fruit first.

Friday we took a field trip to the St. Louis Art Museum. We saw a special exhibit about Louis IX, and we also saw an exhibit about calligraphy in Japan and China, which was timely, since we recently learned about both countries, and calligraphy, in school. The pieces displayed were beautiful, and we learned a lot. Even I didn’t know how big a calligraphy brush could be, and I also had no idea there were so many different kinds of calligraphy script.

While we were out, we also visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. I had promised the children we would find a time to go view the mosaics there (the largest collection in the world!), after we learned about mosaics in history several weeks ago. It’s not the first time we’ve been there, but the magnitude of the work that went into making the mosaics, and their beauty, take your breath away every time. A lot of people may not realize it, but St. Louis really is a wonderful place to view all different kinds of art!

Next week we’re taking our fall week, and I’m really looking forward to it, because I have some housework that’s been piling up that really needs my attention!

Louis IX: King, Saint, Namesake

Today we took a field trip to the St. Louis Art Museum to see two special exhibits. One was related to our current history lessons–Calligraphy in Chinese and Japanese Art. The other was a special, short-term exhibit in celebration of St. Louis’ 250th birthday–Louis IX: King, Saint, Namesake.

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Sadly, photography was not allowed in the galleries, but it was a very interesting exhibit. The best part was a video showing how illuminations in manuscripts were done, and then how the manuscripts were bound. Since we had also learned about that in history recently, it was a nice surprise to an already planned trip.

The first of the two galleries focused on art produced during the reign of Louis IX. The most significant item on display was pages from the Morgan Library Picture Bible, which was made using the illumination techniques mentioned in the video. It is thought that King Louis commissioned the making of this Bible personally, and it is a truly magnificent work to behold!

The other gallery focused on the life and legacy of King Louis, and included many paintings of him (or people posing as him). There were also several books on display for visitors, both adults and children, to look through, including a few that we have in our own home library. Our favorite of those available was Marguerite Makes a Book, which is an excellent children’s story about illuminations and book-making in the middle ages.

If you’re curious about Louis IX, or how books were made prior to the printing press, I recommend this exhibit even though it is very small. And since I couldn’t take pictures in the galleries, I’ll leave you with a picture of one of the most famous statues in St. Louis, which also happens to be located just outside the Art Museum: The Apotheosis of St. Louis, a beautiful gift donated to Forest Park by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company:

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