My children have the absolute coolest, most awesome Kindergarten teacher in the world. She is being forced to retire at the end of next school year, as she will be "too old" to continue teaching. Instead of going out quietly, however, she is stepping up her game and really making all the other teachers look like losers. haha The kids already put on the opera Hansel and Gretel this year and did an amazing job. But apparently that wasn't enough culture for Frau Kaspar, she decided to introduce them to Niki de Saint Phalle. I had no idea who she was at the beginning of all this, but we are experts on her life now!
She began by telling the kids about her life. She would show them different pieces of her art, and ask them what they thought about it. Then, and this is the really cool thing, she had the kids make their own interpretations of Niki's art pieces. They used several different mediums and styles, and in a short period of time as well. They only started talking about Niki since returning from spring vacation at the beginning of May. On Saturday they had an exhibition of all their different masterpieces. The parents and friends of the kids were invited as well, and we all spent about an hour admiring their hard work.
There were some really nice pieces on display. I mean, really good. Stuff I would pay money for and hang in my home, and it wasn't done by my own children! It is so impressive the quality of work she is able to encourage those children to do. And they loved it! Thought it was so cool. Every day they would come home and tell me some new little fact about Niki. They may not learn how to read and write in kindergarten here, but by gum they are sure learning.
The highlight of the show was their very own shooting painting. They had taken several different objects, like empty cleaned out yogurt cups, filled some of them with paint and then covered the whole thing with plaster of paris. Then we took the painting out to the playground and all took turns throwing darts at it to let the paint come out. We learned a few things. One, it's a lot harder to throw darts then you might think. Two, darts are easily lost in the grass. Three, there was a reason Niki used guns for her original Shooting Paintings, they take a lot less time and effort. In the end, Frau Kaspar allowed the children to just poke the darts directly into the painting rather than throwing them to get the paint to come out. Still, it was a fun little experiment, and created a very unique piece of art.
