Many events took place on Saturday, December 12, 2009. Some of Pinnacle's 5th - 7th graders went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC with Miss Laura and Ms. Bergeron. We also had two wonderful chaperons join us on the trip: Reyhan's aunt and Abdullah's sister. The main reason for this field trip was to allow the students to look a variety of art and do their art writing assignment. This marking period, students in 5th - 7th grades are required to visit an art museum in the Washington, DC area and write a one to two page essay on their favorite work of art and overall museum experience. They will also be rewarded extra credit if they include a picture of themselves jumping in front of the art museum!
Some highlights of the trip included taking the metro from Vienna/Fairfax to downtown Washington, DC, the museum cafe (with its delicious selection of pizza, french fries, soda and decadent desserts), the museum gift shop and the installation by artist Leo Villareal entitled "Multiverse", a large and complex light sculpture that features over 40,000 computer-programmed LED nodes that runs along the entire 200 foot-long moving walkway between the East and West Buildings.
For this field trip, students stayed in the East Buliding and saw works by world-famous artists such as Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, whom we studied in class earlier this school year. We spent a considerable amount of time in the "Matisse Cutouts" room, which is only open to the public 4 hours/day due to its sensitivity of light. Many of our students were impresed by Matisse's final works and did not want to leave the room. Students also enjoyed the more realistic paintings in the Small French Paintings gallery, done by artists from the late 1800s to the turn of the century.
All in all, it was a successful trip and the students really enjoyed their time at the museum! We hope to have more informal outings like this in the future.
