Gather facts about Henri Matisse to present to your children. One good place to start is here for easily digestible information about the artist's life. The web series "Art with Mati and Dada" has wonderful short videos about famous artists. Here is Matisse's.

• Take a look at some of Matisse’s color paintings and colleges. How do they make you feel? Why do you think his work is so valuable?

• Matisse was one of the painters of a new style called Fauvism which means wild beasts. Why do you think people compared his work to wild beasts?

Matisse loved using bright, vivid colors. In his later years as an artist, partly because of his failing health, he focused on paper cutouts. Create a collage using colorful paper. For younger children, these can be pre-cut shapes; older children can cut out the shapes themselves. To make your collage even more colorful, pour glue into several small cups and mix with a little bit of paint.

Bake and frost basic sugar cookies using a circular shape cookie cutter and white buttercream frosting. Decorate the cookies using fruit leather or gummy candy that can be cut into Matisse-inspired shapes. Serve your cookies at the gallery opening.