Pre-Kindergarten – 1st Grade

Seasons

How does weather affect our lives? Join Museum Educators at NBMAA to answer this question! Learners will use their close looking skills to identify different seasons in works of art. Through group discussion, students will learn how to look for clues to back up their interpretations.

Connecting Studio Activity: Puppet Self-Portrait

Kindergarten – 5th Grade

Art Bones

Students will learn how to look at works of art by exploring the elements artists use to capture the world around them, including shape, color, texture, line, form, value, and space. Images to be explored may include works of art from the Colonial Period, the Hudson River School, Impressionism, and 20th-century masterpieces.

Connecting Studio Activities: Narrative Collection Collage, Cityscape Collage, Chihuly Sculpture

3rd Grade – 12th Grade

The Artist in the Environment

Students will view landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes from the 19th century through the present to discover imaginative ways that artists have responded to their environment. In “reading” landscape paintings, students will consider character, setting, plot, tone and point of view while citing visual evidence for their conclusions using Visual Thinking Strategies and other methods of inquiry.

Connecting Studio Activities: Landscape Postcards, Math in Landscape

4th Grade – 12th Grade

What is America? 

Students will discuss how artists interpret history through symbols and imagery and think critically as they construct their own interpretations of the past. Students will also discover the ways that artists weave narratives into and tell history through their work. This tour provides students with a perspective on American history using the collection as a visual timeline of primary source documents.

Connecting Studio Activities: Curator for a Day, Landscape Postcards

6th Grade – 12th Grade

What is Art?

Students will learn how to analyze works in depth, from initial observations, to interpretations, to final impressions. They will listen to and learn from each other, expressing and evaluating ideas about provocative artworks from the past and present.

Connecting Studio Activities: Curator for a Day, Landscape Postcards, Chihuly Sculpture, Exquisite Corpse, Narrative Collection Collage

Art, Architecture, Engineering, and Design

How do artists use problem-solving to innovate and create unique works of art for specific locations? Students will answer this question and more while exploring and engaging with pieces from the collection designed for NBMAA museum galleries.

Connecting Studio Activities: Chihuly Sculpture, Benches

Math-terpieces

Students will view a variety of artworks in the Museum’s collection, from site-specific contemporary sculpture to Hudson River School landscapes and Colonial portraiture, to consider how artists have used problem solving, reasoning, and mathematical concepts in the creation of their artwork.

Connecting Studio Activities: Math in Landscape