K-2nd Grade Storytime utilizing the new Keith Haring picture book biography and encouraging kids to embrace art and creativity in themselves and all around.
Opened by sharing Here a Face, There a Face by Arlene Alda (photographs of “found faces” in buildings and objects – book opens with a tribute to John Lennon’s “Imagine”)
Asked if anyone had ever played the drawing game – taking turns adding lines to each other’s drawing – a game Keith Haring played with his father.)
Read: Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing by Kay Haring (Keith’s brother) (Inspiring picture book biography of this generous-hearted artist who created art often in unused or ugly public spaces – suggested teachers might want to get mural paper and have kids do something similar.)
Read: Changes by Anthony Browne (The objects in a boy’s house morph around him in this intriguing book that pays homage to surrealism…)
Dinner at Magritte’s by Michael Garland(great lead in to the art of Rene Magritte – can share pages from Now You See It—Now You Don’t: Rene Magritte (J759.9493 WEN), The Mad, Mad, World of Salvador Dali (759.6 WEN) both by Angela Wenzel, Salvador Dali and the Surrealists – their life & ideas + 21 activities by Michael Ross (J759.6 ROS) and/or Google: “Rene Magritte paintings” and “Salvador Dali paintings”.)
Mentioned life-like statues of J. Seward Johnson – many available to view at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton NJ – an incredible place to visit.
Action break inspired by stone parents in above book – “statues” game aka “freeze dance” – sing or play tunes as students dance, then stop the music and “freeze”
Another incredibly imaginative artist M.C.Escher “Ascending and Descending” and “Relativity” (above) inspired:
Read: Palazzo Inverso by D.B. Johnson (book imagines “master’s” apprentice changing the drawing simply by turning it around – book goes forward then returns backwards (upside down) to the place where it starts!) – also have the kids notice the fish/bird end-papers.
Return to Keith Haring who famously said “It’s your job to decide [what my pictures mean]. I only do the drawing!’ Show his pictures from: Keith Haring: I Wish I Didn’t Have to Sleep (J 709.2 HAR), read excerpts and have kids supply their own interpretations.
Finish with:
Book: If… by Sarah Perry (imagine if cats could fly, leaves were fish, mice were hair, caterpillars were toothpaste, toes were teeth, or frogs ate rainbows…ends with “If this is the end…then dream up some more! – encouraged kids to create their own book of imaginative ideas!)
Related programs:
http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2014/03/picture-this-keith-haring-characters-at.html
http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/08/picture-this-art-exploration-for-kids.html
http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2016/05/school-age-storytimeimagine.html
Related books:
Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Illusion by Al Seckel
Imagine a Place (also Day, Night) by Sarah Thompson, Art by Rob Gonsalves
Bedm 1/2/17
