Trip to Washington D.C. and the National Gallery...

Hubby took me to see our nations Capital, the Calder exhibit, and a Sam Elliot movie...

the Washington Monument and the Mall...

and the National Gallery.

An Alexander Calder sculpture hanging in the East building of the National Gallery designed by

I. M. Pei which opened June 1st, 1978. 

Calder Exhibit

The Giant Blue chicken on the patio just outside the Calder exhibit by 

Katharina Fritsch.

I love oversized random sculptures!

After the museum we went to see the Sam Elliot movie at a movie festival 

that was playing at the E-Street theater. It was only showing in LA, NYC and DC.

I had never been to a movie festival or to a movie that was only showing in "select" theaters!

It was fun and the movie was great. I love me some Sam Elliot! 

We rode the METRO train in to the city...I know that sounds like a really common thing to do

but it is way outside my comfort zone but something I really wanted to try. 

And I loved it. Not sure I can figure out how and where it runs or even how to pay on my own

but it was still fun!

3rd Grade Cities in the Style of IM Pei and James Rizzi and STEAM...

After looking at the work of IM Pei and James Rizzi students created their own cities making sure to have smaller building in the front, mid-sized building behind that and taller buildings in back. 

After you create the city, color it. We used crayons but you can use watercolor or markers if you like that look better.

Changing some of my lessons to STEAM lessons I had kids work in groups to create and entire city. 

They have really learned a lot about how to work in groups through this new approach.

This year I had the kids add in some type of vehicle to their city. I give them extra paper to create what ever type of vehicle they wanted and then asked them to cut it out. We used 3Do's to attach the cars to the city.