Eric Carle Museum

We had nothing planned for Saturday, and I wanted to do some sort of activity with Morty.  Christmas vacation was long and we ran out of things to do at the end...  so I didn't want to just hang around the house.  I decided it would be kind of nice to head out to western Mass and go to the Eric Carle Museum.  I don't know why we didn't do it before.  It was a nice road trip.

In case you're not familiar, Eric Carle is the artist that did several children's books, including "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" -- two of Morty's favorite books.  His style for these books is really interesting.  It turns out that a lot of it is collages - The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a tissue paper collage - I believe he painted the tissue paper and then cut out pieces and put it all together.  His illustrations are very eye catching and colorful.

Brown Bear is an amazing book for Morty.  For quite a period of time, it was the only book he would read with Kate, his speech therapist.  She set up his Step-by-Step button so that he could participate in reading the story (you read a phrase and then he presses the button for the follow on phrase), and he LOVED it.  We've also used Brown Bear to practice colors - since almost every color is represented.  I'll take a color chip and ask him to find the animal that matches the color.

The museum was awesome.  They had several galleries - with Eric Carle's work, one featuring the illustrations from Charlotte's Web, and another with various different illustrations from classic children's stories - several of which we know from Morty's books.  In the galleries, they also had bins with the actual books represented, so we could stop and read a quick story.  One of my favorite things there was the Leo Lionni art from Tilly and the Wall.  The little mice are actually collages.  It's very cool.  We have Lionni's Frederick and love it.

Then they had an art studio set up for the kids to do a little project.  Jim made a little collage with Morty.  We also couldn't help but shop in the museum store.  We picked up two cute new books
-I Want My Hat Back
-Oh No George