Visiting Washington, D.C. # 4 – Sculpture Garden

Here are some pictures and some educational activities for the Sculpture Garden outside the National Gallery of Art. You could discuss them as you and your children look at these pictures or actually visit the Sculpture Garden. The activities are for at home.

This pyramid of blocks gave a flavor of Egypt.

Discussion questions: In what country would you find a pyramid like this? What kind of materials were used to make this?

Activities:

----Stack wooden blocks similarly.

----Draw a pyramid.

----Look up information on Egyptian pyramids and find out how big they were.

----Figure out math problem with the size of block given and how big the base would be if a certain number of blocks were used to build it.

----Have them make up a story about the workers who built this pyramid and the artist who designed it.

These chairs seemingly stacked on top of one another formed an interesting zigzag pattern.

Discussion questions: How many chairs? What else could be stacked like this? They remind me of trim that used to be used on clothing called rickrack, what do they remind you of? What if someone sat on the top chair? What if someone sat on the bottom chair?

Activities:

----Reproduce this with a ruler on a piece of paper.

----Make your own drawing of a sculpture with stacked up items.

I wanted to find a ladder and go inside this one. I don’t suppose the guards would have like that.

 Discussion questions: What animal does this remind you of? What shapes can you see? What kind of triangles are they? Obtuse, right, acute, equilateral, scalene, or isosceles?

Activity:

----Design your own sculptures using geometric shapes.

Again I thought of an animal when I looked at this one.

Discussion questions: What animal does this make you think of? Why do you think the artist used pink?

Activities:

----Reproduce this sculpture with paper.

My favorite sculpture in the park is this silver tree.

Discussion questions: What kind of material is this made of? What story would this fit into? How high do you think this is?

Activity:

----Make up a story about this silver tree.

This house is actually an optical illusion of being four sided when it actually was only two. The paint makes a concave structure look like it is bulging out.

 Discussion: What is an optical illusion? What makes this house an optical illusion?

Activity:

----Look up optical illusions online and find out more about them.

Another I had to wait to find out about until I got home. When my husband saw the picture he said they used to have wheel-like erasers with a brush on the end to use when typing on typewriters. I remember now seeing one my mother had. The big difference between that three-inch one and the one at this sculpture garden was about twenty-five feet.

Discussion: What do you think this is? Why did they use these colors? Explain what it is and then ask about if they know what an antique is. What other objects could be used as a subject for a sculpture to show something that is no longer used.

Activity:

----Design a sculpture inspired by one of the antique objects you talked about.

Final Activity: 

----Write another story about one of these sculptures or about a different world using the sculptures as components of that world. Give them super hero abilities.