Monet water lily ponds

First-graders learned about the world-famous Claude Monet while creating these intricate paintings. Monet always loved art, and, though his mother supported his dreams, his father wanted him to run the family grocery business. Ever since he was young, Monet loved to draw and created caricatures of people and sold them. He hated being confined in a classroom, and preferred being outside in the fresh air, and that carried into his adulthood – his favorite thing was painting en plein air, or  “in the open air.” As a young man, Monet was called off  to serve in France’s army, but was discharged after becoming very ill. He returned to France, where he continued to paint the rest of his life. Monet was most famous for helping create the style of Impressionism, which we learned was all about capturing something as it is changing or moving.

We traced the stools in the art room to create templates for both the round frame and the pond.  Using glue and metallic paint, the frames became “antiqued,” and the ponds and lilies were created with painted paper.