2013 KyAEA Conference:Utilizing Museums

In The Art Classroom

What can the museum do for your classroom?

Act as a storehouse of stories from many cultures and from times both past and present. This allows students to become acquainted with

others cultural heritage along with their own.

Offer opportunities to learn, inspire us, enlarge our vision, and sometimes change our perspectives.

Enrich education and take students deeper into a subject than typical school resources

allow by creating cross-curricular connections.

Allow students to experience the world of art beyond textbooks and expand the

walls of their classrooms.

What kind of educational resources do museums offer?

Upon request, most museums will create

specialized activities during your visit!

Many museum educators will also be willing to design educational

services to meet specific needs of the teachers

(i.e. aligned art curriculum with museum visit for a pre-visit, or

post-visit connection)

The most obvious museum offering is an in-house tour. Some museums charge admission, but may give a discounted group rate

http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators/lesson-plans

Many museums offer additional educational resources online or in hard copy at the museum. You can find lesson plans, project ideas, worksheets,

and assessment ready to print directly from their website.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Teacher Professional development

• Summer Art Camps

• Adult Education Classes

• Family and youth programs (“Family nights/weekends”) Such as: Storytelling, games,

films, theatre, dance and music performances

Most museums have additional on-site programming options for children and adults

At the Kentucky Folk Art center we offer schools the opportunity to add a traditional music performance to accompany their museum

We can schedule a traditional music performance at your school at no charge if your school is within 60 miles of Morehead, or $50-

$100 for schools further.

Importance things to consider when taking your students to the museum • The museum should be the

classroom away from the classroom (an extension of learning)

• The museum should be an exciting place where students can learn, and want to come back.

• By taking a class to an art museum, you may be exposing students to such a setting for the first time.

• It is art that kids do not have to see in books, they can see it in person and walk around it.

There is no replacing the experience students get from

getting to come to the museum!

How can you utilize the art museum from the classroom?

In tough economic times, school art programs can often be hit the hardest. Teachers are struggling

for new ideas when supplies/instructors may be lacking. Museums can offer services that come to you,

because sometimes its difficult for the district to get them to the

museum.

Museums may offer the option for in-school workshops or presentations. For example, during this workshop students viewed several pieces of artwork and learned about artists

in the KFAC museum collection, and then created new artwork of their own.

Educational Suitcase Exhibits

• Kentucky Folk Art• Traditional Craft in Kentucky • Traditional Music in Kentucky

•iPod (with folk art and traditional music)

At the Ky Folk Art Center, we offer four different

tabletop exhibitions for K-12

school systems:

Some museums offer “suitcase exhibits.” These are cases that generally contain

museum artifacts and educational resources and focus on a particular topic. Sometimes there is a fee to use these exhibits. At KFAC

We will pay to send them to the schools, and then the

school will be responsible for sending the exhibit back to

our museum.

• 6-8 educational text panels• Art, craft or musical artifacts

• A specialized lesson plan with assessment

• other educational resources (i.e. book, CD, images)

• 30 iPods are included in the iPod exhibit, and one iPod/speaker dock is included in the traditional music

exhibit.

Each suitcase exhibit

includes:

Some museums may offer additional specialized projects or

offerings. Ask your local art museum!

Teacher tip from the art museum

Grant opportunity: “Pictures in Place: A

Narrative Photography Project”

Teachers in the areas of Language Arts, Social

Studies and Visual Arts at the middle and high school

level are invited to participate in a grant opportunity entitled, Pictures in Place: A

Narrative Photography Project.”

• Written and visual narrative

• No charge/No shipping costs

• Includes: 30 digital cameras, batteries with

chargers, USB cords, and educational resources.

Online access offers art teachers a chance to study

numerous art museum collections in the classroom.

This allows students the opportunity to view and

discuss art from all around the country and

around the world

Some museums offer a website that showcases their collections online with images along with their description and explanations of their significance.

http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/collection-search.html

https://images.nga.gov/en/page/show_home_page.html

The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Occasionally, your students can even view a museum collection through a

virtual tour http://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne

The Louvre Museum, Paris France

Or even zoom in and look at detail of particular artwork in

the museum collection!http://www.louvre.fr/en/oal

Classroom Activity Idea!

Students can develop their own 10-15 minute “museum field

trip” presentation that identifies the location and facts about a museum collection. (Students

can research artists and the historical background of the era

in which the artwork was produced)

This would be a good way for students to share multiple

perspectives and information about an art topic with peers!

What are some additional ways I can incorporate art from museum collections into the regular

art curriculum?

• Students can discuss specific art pieces to examine differences in media, process and

subject matter.

• You could also compare older media to new modern media (egg tempera/natural dyes)

and its restrictions versus modern pigments.

*Using an image of an artwork from the collection can start discussion

about the museum

• Students could look at the conditions that could harm art, such as moisture or sunlight.

• Students could discuss how artwork is “staged” or the arrangement of hanging artwork in the gallery.

• Students can discuss and explore ways to hang or display work.

Teachers can talk about the display and care of the students own artwork and

compare it with that of a museum gallery

Classroom Activity Idea!

Students can help plan and create their own “art exhibit” or collaborative student art show. You can invite parents

and school officials to the event!

Expand the assignment beyond classroom discussion and have students

reflect/write about the artwork they are examining in detail.

• Aesthetics: have students decide what should the museum look like, and discuss what should they display? And why?

• Art criticism: have students describe, interpret and judge works of art

• Studio art: have students create artwork in a similar style or in response to one seen in the collection

• Art history: have students creating connections between the artwork and the history behind it.

Teachers can link the Art Disciplines with the classroom curriculum and the museum

to introduce current news events in the arts (new acquisitions, stolen works, or recent discoveries) can help students keep up with current art media and prompt

classroom discussion, writing assignments or even studio projects.

Go one step further by using current events and

art museum newsletters…

Finally, you can talk to students about the different career options at the museum and the responsibilities of each of those positions.

• Director• Educator• Curator• Conservator• Registrar• photographer

Art museums in Kentucky

What museums are close to me?

By KyAEA Regions:

Pennyrile/Purchase Region:• Janice Mason Art Museum• National Quilt Museum• Yeiser Art Center• The William Clark Market

House Museum• John James Audubon

Museum and Nature Center• Henderson Fine Arts Center

Derby Region:• The Kentucky Derby Museum• The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft• The Speed Art Museum • Portland Museum• Kentucky Center

Bluegrass Region:• The Minds Wide Open Arts Center• Explorium• Headley Whitney Museum• International Museum of the Horse• UK Art Museum• The Lyric Theatre• The Kentucky Native American

Heritage Museum• The Kentucky Artisan Center

Northern Region (and Greater Cincinnati area):• The Baker-Hunt Art and Cultural Center• Behringer-Crawford Museum• Carnegie • Taft Art Museum• Contemporary Arts Center• Cincinnati Museum Center• Cincinnati Art Museum

Burley/Coal Region:• The Kentucky Folk Art Center• The Gateway Regional Center for the

Arts• Paramount Arts Center• Highlands Museum and Discovery

Center• Harriet Beecher-Stowe Museum• Kentucky Gateway Museum Center• The Kentucky Coal Museum • Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum

Caveland Region:• The Kentucky Library and

Museum• The Corvette Museum

Contact information:Susan Hawkins, Outreach Educator

Morehead State UniversityKentucky Folk Art Center

Email: sl.hawkins@moreheadstate.eduPhone: 606-783-2204

Online Sources:

http://www.eastvalleytribune.comhttp://art-collecting.com/nonprofits_ky.htm

http://munews.missouri.eduhttp://nytimes.com

Book Source:

“Using the Art Museum”,Author: Denise L. StoneDavis Publications, Inc.

Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.Copyright.2001

“Using Museums as an Educational Resource”,Author: Graeme Talboys

Ashgate Publishing CompanyBrookfield, Vermont, USA.

Copyright. 1996