Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “The Wright 3”

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Our book this month is a super exciting one, and it’s full of lesson possibilities, too!  We read Chasing Vermeer“>Chasing Vermeer.  This book continues the story of Calder and Petra as they try to stop the destruction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.

We started out by summarizing and discussing the story.  There are lots of threads to pull in this one – issues about art, murder, friendship, honesty, and architecture – and we pulled them all.

Then we moved into the kitchen to bake one of Calder and Petra’s favorite snacks.  They seem to eat a lot of cookies, often at the neighbor’s house while having tea, so the girls mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  I baked them while they worked on the next project.

I wanted the girls to get a good feel for how different Wright’s architecture is and how special and custom he made it.  Having visited Falling Waters years ago, I knew the great lengths to which Wright went to make his buildings visionary.  We watched this YouTube video and tried to identify the locations in the book that happened in the house.  The girls were really good at this!

Then we moved into the kitchen.  The girls paired up and chose special locations.  They tried to blend their unique places with a livable space, and they found that it wasn’t easy!

They had fun doing it, though, and I heard lots of giggles through the process.  (Incidentally, my Big Helper hasn’t stopped drawing blueprints since!)

The Robie House was extremely unique for it’s time period, but it’s not the building that stands out the most to me.  I think that Falling Waters does an even better job of merging the environment with the building (how much closer can you get than to be built overtop of a waterfall?) and so we also watched a video tour of that.  Much of this video is computer-generated, but it does share the location extremely well.

Next we talked about the art glass windows that Wright designed specifically for the Robie House.  I gave the girls some pattern blocks and asked them to think only about the shapes, not the colors, and to design a window quickly.  The girls made some great designs on the fly!

Then it was time for the real thing.  Using wooden sticks, plastic beads, and their own imaginations, the girls created their own faux art glass windows.  Sorting the beads took a long time, as they were very small, but each girl successfully designed and made her own window – and the light shines through beautifully!

What are your kids reading right now?

Want more information about Wright and his work?  Check out these books: