Art Discovery

Week 1: Matthew’s Dream, Leo Lionni

Vocabulary
  • dreariness: boring and lifeless
  • entranced: filled with delight
  • float: to rest on top of the surface of a liquid without sinking
  • immense: extremely large
  • remains: the parts left over after something is gone
  1. The hungry bird pecked at the remains of my sandwich.
  2. The broken toy boat would not float in the pond.
  3. The beauty of the rainbow entranced the viewers.
  4. The mountain was immense.
  5. The long car ride filled me with dreariness.
Vocabulary Usage in the Book
  1. The gray dreariness of his attic corner appeared to him in all its bleak misery.
  2. Entranced Matthew wandered from room to room gazing at the paintings.
  3. There were winged mice that floated through the air and mice with horns and bushy tails.
  4. He dreamed that he and Nicoletta were walking, hand in hand, in an immense , fantastic painting.
  5. In one corner of the attic, draped with cobwebs, were piles of newpapers, books, and magazines, an old broken lamp, and the sad remains of a doll.
Comprehension
  1. Matthew was a poor mouse who lived in a dusty corner.
  2. Matthew and his classmates were taken to the museum.
  3. When Matthew saw a painting of rushing streams, he knew he had found the wide world.
  4. One painting of a mouse looked like crusts of a pastry.
  5. Walking through the museum, Matthew met another mouse.
  6. In Matthew’s dream, he and Nicoletta were walking hand in hand, in an immense, fantastic painting.
  7. When Matthew woke up he told his parents that he wants to be a painter.
  8. Matthew’s canvasses were filled with the shapes and colors of joy.
  9. Matthew married Nicolleta and in time he became famous.
  10. Matthew named his last painting “My Dream.”

Week 2: The Art Lesson, Tomie dePaola

Vocabulary
  • carpenter: a person who builds things with wood
  • collected: having kept special things for long time
  • practice: repeated work on something to become better
  • sheets: rectangular pieces of paper or fabric
  • smock: a loose shirt worn over clothes to protect them
  1. The boys collected toy trains.
  2. To get food at piano you must practice.
  3. The student drew on many sheets of paper.
  4. The man hired a carpenter to build a table made of wood.
  5. The artist wore a smock so that his clothes would not get dirty.
Vocabulary Usage in the Book
  1. When the walls were up, one of the carpenters gave Tommy a piece of bright blue chalk.
  2. Jack collected all kinds of turtles.
  3. They told him not to copy and to practice, practice, practice.
  4. But when his mom changed the sheets on Monday and found them, she said, “No more drawing on the sheets Tommy.”
  5. He could tell she was an artist because she wore a blue smock over her dress and she always carried a big box of thick colored chalks.
Comprehension
  1. 1. Tommy liked to draw pictures.
  2. His pictures got put up in his room, around the house, in the barbershop, and in the grocery store.
  3. Once, Tommy drew pictures on his sheets, but his mom washed them.
  4. In the new house, Tommy got to draw pictures on the unpainted walls.
  5. Tommy was excited for the art lessons in kindergarten.
  6. The paints in kindergarten cracked on the paper when it dried.
  7. In fact, when Tommy was walking home, the paint blew right off the paper.
  8. For his birthday, Tommy got a box of sixty-four Crayola crayons.
  9. In art class, each child only got one piece of paper.
  10. Tommy did not want to copy the art teacher’s drawing.
  11. Tommy made a deal with the art teacher to do the same drawing as everyone else, then if there were time he could make his own drawings with his crayons.
  12. When Tommy grew up, he became an artist.

Week 3: Appelemando’s Dream, Patricia Polacco

Vocabulary
  • disappeared: become invisible
  • drab: dull and lacking brightness
  • galloping: running really fast
  • shafts: long straight columns
  • snickered: gave a quiet laugh
  1. The sky was drab and gray because it was about to rain.
  2. The light form the sunshine came in brilliant shafts.
  3. After the rain, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out.
  4. The child snickered when his friend told him a funny joke.
  5. The horse was galloping around the track to win the race.
Vocabulary Usage in the Book
  1. The children tried and tried to get the dreams to stay, but each time the dreams shifted off and disappeared.
  2. Once there was a very drab village, so drab in fact, that the road leading to it was overgrown from lack of visitors and interest.
  3. For him, dreams were magic chariots pulled through his mind by galloping hues of color.
  4. They twisted through shafts of brilliant sunlight.
  5. “What a mess we’d have,” Lark snickered.
Comprehension
  1. Appelemando was a boy who loved to dream.
  2. Appelemando and his friends shared a secret.
  3. When Appelemando dreamed, he and his friends could see them.
  4. His dreams floated up into the air.
  5. The dreams stuck to the wet piece of paper.
  6. One day Appelemando started to dream and the sun suddenly hid behind a gray storm cloud.
  7. After the storm, Appelemando’s dreams had stuck to the walls and storefronts of the town.
  8. When the dreams stuck to the walls, the townsfolk were stunned and some were angry.
  9. When the children tried to tell the townspeople about the dreams the more suspicious the elders became.
  10. After they had cleaned up, the children were so sad they didn’t watch the path and they got lost in the forest.
  11. The children were fond because Appelemando was able to dream and the pictures were seen floating in the air by the townspeople.
  12. The townspeople never again questioned the importance of dreams.

Week 4: Art Dog, Thacher Hurd

Vocabulary
  • apartment: a home in a building containing multiple homes
  • creep: to move slowly and quietly
  • glisten: to shine or sparkle
  • seldom: not often, rarely
  • tiptoe: to walk softly on the balls of the feet
  1. Robert saw the detective’s car creep slowly down the street.
  2. Jennifer cried when her best friend moved out of the apartment building next door.
  3. The mother seldom laughed when her son forgot to do his homework.
  4. The children were delighted by the glisten of sunshine on the snow after days of stormy weather.
  5. For fun, the girls walked on tiptoe across the freshly mowed lawn.
Vocabulary Usage in the Book
  1. At night Arthur came home to his little apartment on West 17th Street, made himself dinner, and read until it was time for bed.
  2. He crept down an alley, and when he was sure no one was around, he unlocked the box and took out…
  3. On those nights Arthur’s eyes grew bright and his fur seemed to glisten.
  4. He seldom went out – except on nights when the moon was full.
  5. He would take out a box he kept in his closet, put on a hat and mask, and tiptoe down the backstairs into the streets of Dogopolis.
Comprehension
  1. Arthur likes his job at the art museum.
  2. Arthur loves art, but cannot decide on a favorite artist.
  3. On special nights, after eating and reading, Arthur puts on a mask, unlocks a box, and paints pictures.
  4. Art Dog wonders whether anyone will ever see his paintings.
  5. One night, the art museum’s alarm rings and the Chief of Police discovers the Mona Woofa has been stolen.
  6. The police threw Art Dog in jail because he had a brush in his paw.
  7. Art Dog escaped by painting a ladder and window from which he could jump out.
  8. Art Dog then painted a Brushmobile, rode off into the night, and slammed his brakes in front of a deserted warehouse.
  9. When the Chief of Police asked Art Dog how he knew where to find the mutts who stole the Mona Woofa, he told him that he could smell art a mile away.
  10. Art Dog captured the mutts who stole the Mona.
  11. The Museum Director liked Art Dog’s “masterpiece” and invited him to show his work at the Dogopolis Museum of Art.
  12. Everyone was amazed and speechless when they saw Art Dog’s City Rhapsody, but wondered who was Art Dog, painter in a Brushmobile, catcher of crooks, bringer of light to the Dogopolis night?

Week 5: Norman the Doorman, Don Freeman

Vocabulary
  • bamboozled: to be very confused
  • bitter: very sharp and harsh
  • dashed: ran somewhere very fast
  • scooted: left quickly
  • sculpture: a three dimensional piece of artwork
  1. The sculpture of President Lincoln was carved from solid marble.
  2. The dashed across the road after checking both ways.
  3. The winter that year was very cold and bitter.
  4. Carol scooted over to make room for Isabel in the reading circle.
  5. Everyone was bamboozled when the magician turned his rabbit into a dove.
Vocabulary Usage in the Book
  1. “Well, I’ll be bamboozled ,” cried the guard. (Pg. 56)
  2. One bitter cold day Norman decided to stay in his studio and make something out of wire. (Pg. 19)
  3. His bright flashlight frightened the visitors, and they dashed out the secret hole into the night like pink and white lightning. (Pg. 15)
  4. …Norman put a cover over his statue, as he had seen the others do, and away he scooted. (Pg. 30)
  5. He would also take great pride in pointing out the artistic features of certain pieces of Greek sculpture which rested in the dark corners of the storage room. (Pg. 13)
Comprehension
  1. Norman would greet all of the art-loving mice who came to the museum. (Pg. 10)
  2. The only worry that Norman had was avoiding the sharp-eyed upstairs guard. (Pg. 14)
  3. His favorite hiding place was inside the helmet of the suit of armor. (Pg. 16)
  4. In the helmet, Norman set up a little art studio. (Pg. 17)
  5. One day he decided to make sculptures out of the mousetraps that he had made safe. (Pg. 19)
  6. After working hard one day he made a sculpture he was very proud of that looked like a mouse on a flying trapeze. (Pg. 21)
  7. Norman decided to enter the contest with his sculpture that he named, “TRAPEESE.” (Pg. 28)
  8. Norman was worried that the judges would not see his little sculpture among the larger works of the contestants. (Pgs. 34-35)
  9. Even though he was excited about the contest, Norman knew he still had a job to do.
  10. The museum director was confused and did not know who the artist was, but when the guard saw the art he knew who and where the artist was. (Pg. 42)
  11. The guard discovered Norman standing guard outside and took him into the museum for the awards ceremony. (Pgs. 54-55)
  12. The only request that Norman had was to see the upstairs part of the museum. (Pg. 59)