The LMEA

(The Lemley Museum of Edible Art, of course)

Can you name these famous pieces?

Maximo is definitely in a "Look at me, look at me!" stage right now.  And, well, he's just so cute, we're looking at him a lot!  Although the 1,000,000 "Mommy (or Daddy), Look at Me's between the end of the school day and bedtime can sometimes be a bit rough.

John and I have truly enjoyed watching Maximo as he begins his "school education" this year.  He LOVES going to school!  And, one of the definitely perks of being an international teacher is not only teaching at amazing schools around the world, but (even better), Maximo and Lola will be products of these amazing schools and hopefully, a full IBO education.

Currently, Maximo's class is learning about Art in his class for his Unit of Inquiry PYP Unit.  The way the curriculum has been written and implemented by Maximo's teacher and collaborating teachers is amazing.  It's so inquiry based and hands-on.  He is learning so much.

He is fascinated by art now - he wants to make it all the time.

 

He draws on my white board in my room every morning, "for my students".

He connects to it all the time - and in amazing ways:

"Mommy, that's a sculpture."
"It's like a museum.
"Mommy, I put the cool colors on the warm colors"
"That's starry night by Mr. Vincent VanGogh" - WHAT?!

This week there are two culminating events that unfortunately I couldn't attend.  One was the Arty-Party where there were different stations to create art using different techniques and mediums.  There was a lot of parent-teacher collaboration with this event and the set up looked like so much fun!

Lastly, was the Art Show for Maximo's class and the two KA classes.  I was home sick with Lola, although my teaching schedule wouldn't have let me attend.  Fortunately a colleague offered to cover John's class for 20 minutes so he could go attend today.

 Showing off his pottery

The (BBP & KA - 3 and 4 year old programs) Art exhibition - 

Maximo proudly showed his off to Daddy explaining what each one was.  

He had work chosen by him and some teacher selected work as well.

Earlier in the week during my 30 minute volunteer time each week with Maximo's class (another perk of your kids' attending your school), I assisted the kids in picking out a piece of art that they wanted to showcase in the exhibition.  Then we asked the students how they created the piece, what materials they used, and why they chose it for the art show.  It was great to be there to share that with Max and the classmates that I "interviewed".

Since I couldn't attend the art show and I felt guilty and always love the excuse to create myself (especially with food), I made an edible art gallery.  I need to give credit where credit is due.  I got the idea from a blog I frequent: The Decorated Cookie.  This is her cookie art gallery.  She has great cookie ideas with very easy to follow tutorials.

This is how we made ours:
Stage 1: Make simple square sugar cookies

Stage 2: Create a border with royal icing

Stage 3: Flood the cookie to make a canvas (let sit overnight)

Stage 4: Use edible food pens to recreate famous art - some took longer than others, some turned out better than others.  It was starting to become really time consuming (and I had to write sub plans), so I did multiple Jackson Pollock-esque cookies and a few Mondrian-style geometric paintings.

 My Lovely Assistant

 My Favs:

 

Andy Warhol - Marilyn Monroe

The Scream by Edvard Munch (reproduced by John)

 Picasso's The Dream

 The Son of Man by Magritte

Stage 5: Let dry and send to school in hopes they don't fall apart on the bike ride!  While it being awesome to ride our bikes everywhere, it's a bit hard to transport food in a bike basket.

I trolled the internet looking for easy-to-replicate famous art.  Well, most famous art is famous for a reason, so this was easier said than done, especially with 8 basic colors to use.

They were a lot of fun to make, I find baking and decorating therapeutic and a whole lot better than writing comments for my report cards which are due in a week!