Museum of Arts and Design

Ella:


At the Museum of Arts and Design there was some cool stuff.  There was a chair made out of 3D printed puzzle pieces.  They stuck together in a curvy shape without any glue.  We also saw some glass sculptures where they had pressed beaded masks onto the glass sculpture's faces when the glass was still hot and drying.  We got to see how they made the glass sculptures by watching a video.  We went to a class and we talked about abstract and figurative things.  For example, a sculpture can be figurative or abstract and so can a painting.  Abstract means something that's not actually meant to be anything.  Figurative is the exact opposite.  We also learned that paintings are usually 2D and sculptures, 3D.  

Before we went to the museum we went on the website and we watched a video about an artist named Willard Wigan.  He makes microscopic sculptures.  One was even smaller than an aphid bug.  One was on top of a pin head.  A man asked him to make a tiny house on top of a pin head.  So he made the house on top of the pin head.  He used tiny fibers and hair from a fly's head.  And he had to use a microscope to make the sculpture.  He had to call the man who asked him to make it and say, "Sorry, Darren Dust Mite and his family have just moved in!  They refuse to pay me the rent."  He said that sometimes he accidentally inhales his work.  One time one of his pieces fell on his shirt and he accidentally flicked it off.  

At the gift shop we bought a 3D tic tac toe game.  

Holden:


We saw an artist on the top floor (6th floor).  She was making a chain of soda can tabs.  She wants to make it as long as the Mariana Trench in the ocean.  She gets her tabs from the recycling company.  They have different artists working at the museum every day.

In the classroom we made clay sculptures.  I made a dragon.  We also made paper sculptures.  I made the dragon's wings out of paper.  When we got home we made some more sculptures out of clay like Winnie the Pooh characters.

Something I really like that I saw in the museum was  a chair made out of bamboo and Japanese ash wood.  I liked it because we have wooden chairs at home and it reminded me of them.

Northern Central Park

 Holden:

Last weekend we went to the North Woods of Central Park.  I played soccer there.  We saw a river and a couple waterfalls.  The river was long.  My soccer field was there.  We hiked in the woods.  It was dark.  There are lots of big rocks to climb.  We saw tiny chipmunks and squirrels, pigeons and little brown birds.  We saw turtles in the Harlem Meer (a Meer is a lake).  There's a boathouse there where you can go fishing.

Ella:

We went to the North Woods of Central Park.  We went to the Harlem Meer.  There's a big lake there and there's also a little house where you can rent fishing poles to go fishing.  There are also two little parks there.  In the Meer we saw lots and lots of turtles.  We also walked around a little bit in the North Woods.  I liked it a lot because it was fun to look at the turtles swimming.  After that we went to the Conservatory Garden.  There's a plaque there dedicated to an author.  In that same little area there is a fountain and there are fish.  We hiked through the North Woods and saw squirrels and chipmunks.  There was a big tree where a lot of people had carved their names.  I would recommend going there.  It is a fun and interesting place because there is a lot of nature.

New York Historical Society

 
Ella:

I really like the New York Historical Society because there are lots of fun things to see and to do.  On Thursdays after school, there are cross-stitch classes.  Cross-stitch is really fun.  Once you know how to do it you can do all sorts of designs.  The reason they teach cross-stitch is because a long time ago younger girls used to cross-stitch the alphabet and sometimes maps onto fabric.  That is how they would learn the alphabet and other things in school.

Right now there is an exhibit called The Madeline Exhibit.  It is about a character in a book named Madeline.  The reason the New York Historical Society is having this exhibit is because the author of the books lived and wrote the books in New York City.  We got to see some of the original drawings from the books and there was a station where you can read some of the books.  On Wednesdays and Thursdays after school they have something called a Madeline tea party.

I think the museum is fun for kids because there is lots of old and ancient history there that can be really interesting.  There are all different sorts of ancient artifacts and history there about New York. 

I am about to start a class about the Lenape Indians at the New York Historical Society.  It will be every Friday.  You can check out their website for many other classes.

There is also a tour of the museum in Spanish.  I've done it twice.  Afterwards, sometimes you go into a different room and you can paint what you saw.  Sometimes, you can draw and glue stuff and do artwork about what you saw on the tour.  It was really fun.  You probably need to understand Spanish or else it's pretty hard.

Holden:

I like going to the New York Historical Society because the bottom floor is all for kids.  They have cross-stitch.  They have creepy pictures on the walls.  At the staircase there's a picture of the guy who invented Jell-O.  That's kind of weird.  They have something that takes your picture and makes you famous.  They have a movie theater that plays a movie about New York.

We've done scavenger hunts there.  You had to find ancient stuff from the past, for example, a piece of a tail of King George the Third's horse (his statue).  When you finish the scavenger hunt you can turn it in at the gift shop for a Liberty Dog stuffed animal. 

My favorite part of the museum is the library.  The library is where you take the cross-stitch class.  And it has some other activities that are fun.