Our trip to the museum

The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University has started a program for young children called Mondays at the Museum. Once a month, on a Monday morning, the museum will sponsor a storytelling activity - the story being set in a particular period - located in an area of the museum with a collection relevant to the story told, and followed by an art activity.

Yesterday's story was Rain Player by David Wisniewski. An ancient Mayan boy challenges the rain god to a game to force the god to send rain so his people won't starve.

After the story, the children (ages 3-5) were given a brief tour of the Mayan collection. I wish it could have been a little bit longer since Casey and I had spent the weekend studying the Ancient Americas.

Then, we made a paper craft, cutting out shapes of jaguars, rain gods, quetzals, and corn. The book was illustrated using beautiful paper cutouts; that was the inspiration for the craft.

Nana went with us and we all had a GREAT time!