Today I took Lil Sis to the Art Institute. It was such a pleasure to watch her discover art. The Impressionists were her favorite, especially Monet's water lilies and this painting by Renoir.
I was totally in teacher mode, asking her lots of questions about the paintings. It really concerns me how limited her vocabulary is. For example, we were looking at this painting, which was originally attributed to Rembrandt, but now they think it was done by one of his students.
I asked Khalia about the look on the girl's face. She said, "Happy." And I said, "Really? What makes you think she's happy?" Khalia could tell she'd gotten the answer wrong, so she quickly changed her answer to "mad." First of all, this shows that she has a lot of problems with inferential thinking. Secondly, those seem to be the only emotions she really knew how to describe when we looked at paintings. I need to figure out some sneaky ways to build her vocabulary.
Another highlight of our visit was seeing this painting, which is one of my favorites. Khalia liked it too, after I told her the story behind it.
It's Elaine, from the Tennyson poem about Lancelot and Elaine. I fell in love with this painting during my Goth days (Elaine died of a broken heart after being spurned by Lancelot), and loved it even more when I realized it was from Anne of Green Gables. It's one of my favorite scenes- Anne is pretending to be Elaine, and her friends put her in a boat, do a little funeral, and float her down the river. But the boat springs a leak, and Gilbert has to save her. Meanwhile, her friends all think she's dead. It's hilarious. Khalia loves the Anne movies too, so she was excited to see this painting. And I think it was good for her to be able to make that connection. We talk about making connections as being an important comprehension strategy; I think it's important in life, too, not just when you're reading.
I had to take a picture of this painting. I can't remember who it's by, but I think it was done in the 1500's. Venus is yelling at Jupiter. Look at what Jupiter is sitting on. It's supposed to be a bird, but come on... obviously, that was intentional. And I just about died laughing, and Khalia looked at me like I was crazy.
Here's one last picture of Khalia by one of the lions.
It was a lovely day!
I was totally in teacher mode, asking her lots of questions about the paintings. It really concerns me how limited her vocabulary is. For example, we were looking at this painting, which was originally attributed to Rembrandt, but now they think it was done by one of his students.
I asked Khalia about the look on the girl's face. She said, "Happy." And I said, "Really? What makes you think she's happy?" Khalia could tell she'd gotten the answer wrong, so she quickly changed her answer to "mad." First of all, this shows that she has a lot of problems with inferential thinking. Secondly, those seem to be the only emotions she really knew how to describe when we looked at paintings. I need to figure out some sneaky ways to build her vocabulary.
Another highlight of our visit was seeing this painting, which is one of my favorites. Khalia liked it too, after I told her the story behind it.
It's Elaine, from the Tennyson poem about Lancelot and Elaine. I fell in love with this painting during my Goth days (Elaine died of a broken heart after being spurned by Lancelot), and loved it even more when I realized it was from Anne of Green Gables. It's one of my favorite scenes- Anne is pretending to be Elaine, and her friends put her in a boat, do a little funeral, and float her down the river. But the boat springs a leak, and Gilbert has to save her. Meanwhile, her friends all think she's dead. It's hilarious. Khalia loves the Anne movies too, so she was excited to see this painting. And I think it was good for her to be able to make that connection. We talk about making connections as being an important comprehension strategy; I think it's important in life, too, not just when you're reading.
I had to take a picture of this painting. I can't remember who it's by, but I think it was done in the 1500's. Venus is yelling at Jupiter. Look at what Jupiter is sitting on. It's supposed to be a bird, but come on... obviously, that was intentional. And I just about died laughing, and Khalia looked at me like I was crazy.
Here's one last picture of Khalia by one of the lions.
It was a lovely day!
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