James Whistler Lesson - Glue Sticks and Games

This week our friends were not able to join us for our art lesson. But, honestly, I feel like Liam paid more attention without the distraction of friends…or he at least focused more on his project instead of just wanting to run off to play.

Lesson

There’s honestly not that much on the internet about James Whistler at least compared to the amount of resources about Claude Monet.

But using our Read Aloud we had a good time having a discussion about him. We especially focused on the very famous painting of his mother.

The funniest part of the lesson was when I gave Liam his assignment. He asked me to pose. Now, this was in the middle of making dinner.

In my house that means that I’m cooking, holding a fussy one year old, feeding two dogs and trying to half-concentrate on Liam.

So when he asks me to pose I laughed. Then the little angel inside my head said, “Just do it. He’s being creative. Don’t kill his creativity. Everything else can wait (kind of).”

So I posed. And then ran to stir the rise. Then posed again. Then checked on the chicken in the oven. Then posed again. Then gave Lake his fifteenth snack of the evening. Then posed again.

He looks at me and says “Stop moving. Do you think Mr. Whistler’s mom kept getting up? No!”

BAM!

Don’t I look beautiful?

What We Learned

By the end of the lesson, they were able to:

recount facts about James Whistler’s painting
create their own artwork resembling the color style of Whistler

They also now has a good understanding of many new vocabulary words such as:

portrait
self-portrait

My entire lesson plan and the lesson Read Aloud can be purchased here.

Here’s a little secret, though. Any Glue Sticks and Games blog subscriber receives these materials FREE in their inbox each week! So, snag your copy of this lesson and then sign up to get the rest of the year for free!

Other Great Resources

Here are some great resources that are not included in my Lesson Plan but that I felt were still worth mentioning. And I’m sure I’ll come back to these when we have space time throughout our week.