As a child, Josef Albers loved to watch his handyman father paint houses. When Josef grew up and became an artist, he reduced each image to its simplest shapes, breaking it down into blocks of color. He made an incredible discovery: he could alter the entire mood of a painting just by changing the way he combined the colors. Josef spent his entire life studying color, and what he found revolutionized the way people look at art.
Europe
Materials from Europe
Building on Nature: The Life of Antoni Gaudi
Antoni Gaudí grew up in Catalonia, a place of wild beauty. He moved to Barcelona to become an architect, learning the rules of form and structure that buildings were supposed to follow. Yet he never forgot the shapes and colors of his childhood home. Antoni Gaudí turned nature into art, and in the process he revolutionized the world of architecture.
Look What Came From Germany
Describes many things that originally came from Germany, including inventions, vehicles, household items, customs, animals, fairy tales, and food.
Greek Town: Metropolis
Presents life in a town in ancient Greece, covering the temple, town square, a family home, an open-air theatre, games, the cemetery, the port, and more.
The King of Quizzical Island
When no one can answer his question about what is at the edge of the world, the King of Quizzical Island builds a boat and sets sail to find out for himself, despite the objections of his fearful people.
A Friend like You
Photographer Tanja Askani adopts orphaned or injured animals — wolf pups, raccoons, owls, rabbits, and fawns, among others — and under her care, unexpected friendships form.
What’s Coming for Christmas?
You can see it in the way the snowman’s eyes sparkle. Hear it in the voices of carolers echoing in the streets, and in the sounds of children trimming the tree. You can feel it in the warm fire dancing in the hearth. Meanwhile, the mother hen hushes her chicks, the pigs’ little tails curl in excitement, and the sheep nod knowingly as all wait in eager anticipation for a joyous Christmas surprise.
Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci
In 1781, Thomas Paine came up with a model for a single-span bridge; in 1887, Adolf Eugen Fick made the first pair of contact lenses; and in 1907, Paul Cornu built the first helicopter. But Leonardo da Vinci thought of all these ideas more than five hundred years ago! At once an artist, inventor, engineer, and scientist, da Vinci wrote and drew detailed descriptions of what would later become hang gliders, automobiles, robots, and much more.
Truce
On July 29th 1914, the world’s peace was shattered as the artillery of the Austria-Hungary Empire began shelling the troops of the country to its south. What followed was like a row of falling dominoes as one European country after another rushed into war. Soon most of Europe was fighting in this calamitous war that could have been avoided. This was, of course, the First World War.
But who could have guessed that on December 25 the troops would openly defy their commanding officers by stopping the fighting and having a spontaneous celebration of Christmas with their “enemies”?
Projects about Ancient Rome (Hands-On History)
Includes social studies projects taken from the ancient Romans.