Thursday, May 20, 2010

Enriched

(Okay, you talked me into it.)

Allie has been attending an afternoon enrichment class three days a week. Since her kindergarten is just half-day, she needed something to fill the long afternoons until her brother comes home.

It's a terrific program. It provides exactly the mix of arts and crafts, science, and social studies that I wanted her exposed to; you know, all the fluffy stuff that is conspicuously lacking in a kindergarten program that nonetheless always finds the time to squeeze in snack during its two and a half hours each morning.

(Not that I'm bitter ... much.)

Anyway, the enrichment class just finished its unit on artists. The kids learned about Picasso, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Michaelangelo. They made artwork in the style of each artist -- for Michaelangelo, for example, they lay under their tables and painted on their backs; to learn about pointillism they painted bubble wrap and pressed paper against the plastic to make a print.

As I was relishing in my delight over the enrichment curriculum and Allie's new fund of western art knowledge, a humbling thought occurred to me: My 6-year-old might actually know more about art history than I do.

I suspect that I should get used to this feeling.