K-12 Tours
Pre-K through Grade 12 School Tours
The Akron Art Museum is committed to supporting the educational success of local youth by providing quality educational programs and exciting learning opportunities for students and educators. The Pre-K through Grade 12 tour program provides participants with firsthand experience of the significant artworks in the museum's collection and special exhibitions.
School tours are FREE for students and chaperones when scheduled by a teacher, instructor or school official at least three weeks in advance.
Due to security and safety issues, admission cannot be guaranteed for unscheduled tours or groups arriving without an adequate number of adult chaperones. If unscheduled groups are admitted, regular admission fees may apply for each visitor in the group.
Scheduling a Tour
All requests must be made at least 3 weeks prior to the tour date.
All requests are subject to docent availability.
All tour requests must be submitted online.
CLICK HERE to request your school tour.
Non-School Youth Group Tours
The museum offers free admission to all children who tour the museum with their daycare, home-school group, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops when scheduled at least three weeks in advance. For these tours, the museum allows one complimentary adult admission for every 10 children on the tour. Additional accompanying adults are charged the reduced admission price of $6 per person.CLICK HERE to request your non-school youth group tour.
Once you submit your online request, a museum representative will contact you within 3 business days. PLEASE NOTE: Your tour is officially scheduled upon your receipt of mailed or e-mailed tour confirmation materials.
For questions regarding your tour, contact Director of Education Missy Higgins-Linder at 330.376.9186 x229 or mHiggins@AkronArtMuseum.org. Also contact her as soon as possible should any of the
following occur:
• Your confirmation or tour materials contain inaccurate information or do not arrive shortly after you scheduled your tour.
• The number of students changes.
• You must cancel a scheduled tour.
• Your arrival is delayed for any reason.
Gallery space and docents cannot be guaranteed for groups arriving more than 15 minutes late unless the Museum has been notified of the delayed arrival. The Museum cannot extend tour times to accommodate late arrivals. Your tour will end at the scheduled time regardless of when you arrived.
Tour Dates and Times
Tours for Pre-K through Grade 1 are 45 minutes. Tours for children in Grades 2-12 are about an hour long.
September through May of each school year, Pre-K through Grade 12 Tours can be scheduled starting at 9:30 am, Wednesday through Friday, with the last tour starting at 3:30 pm. Tours may be scheduled until 7:00 pm on Thursday evenings.
June through August, school tours are available on Wednesdays and Fridays only.
Group Size
The tour minimum for PreK-12 and Non-School Youth Group tours is 7 students and 1 adult. The museum can accommodate up to 60 students per tour. Requests for groups of more than 60 students must be divided across multiple dates. Large groups of students will be divided into smaller tour groups of 10-15, each led by a separate docent. School groups must provide at least 1 adult chaperone for each group of 15 students.
Bussing and Substitute Coverage Reimbursements
Special funds are available to help Pre-K through Grade 12 classroom teachers bring their students to the museum
for educational field trips during the regular school year. The museum will reimburse school districts up to $150 per field trip for classes who are otherwise unable to visit the museum due to prohibitive transportation costs.
The museum is also able to reimburse school districts for the cost of hiring substitutes for teachers who do not teach in self-contained classrooms (i.e., elementary art teachers and secondary teachers). Field trips to the museum— including travel time to and from the museum, an hour-long tour experience, and the option of eating lunch on-site— typically take up less than half of the school day. The museum will reimburse districts for substitute teacher pay rates up to $65 per field trip. For more information contact the museum’s education department staff.
TOUR THEMES & SUBJECTS
During school tours, specially trained docents (museum guides) lead students through the museum's collection galleries and initiate focused discussions and activities around specially selected groups of art objects. Each museum field trip directly addresses multiple Ohio Academic Content Standards. Because of the nature of the tour format every tour, regardless of the tour theme or artworks covered, thoroughly addresses the Benchmarks and grade level Indicators for two major Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts— Analyzing and Responding and Valuing the Arts/Aesthetic Reflection. Specific tours and themes may address additional Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts and other subject areas. Visit the Education Curriculum page for more information.
In addition to the tour options listed below, teachers are encouraged to bring their students to tour our special exhibitions. See the exhibition calendar for details about upcoming shows.
- Self-Guided Tours (High Schools only)
High school teachers may also self-guide tours of the galleries. You must provide 1 adult chaperone for each group of 15 students. Self-guided tours can only be scheduled during the museum’s regular business hours.
- Art Recipes: Line, Shape & Color
Recommended for Pre-K through Grade 2
(Visual Arts focused)
What are the most important ingredients for making a work of art? Learn about three important art elements and how artists use them to create a wide variety of “flavors” and visual treats. You won’t have to worry about a tummy ache after you gobble up this visual feast of a tour!
- People, Places and Things
Recommended for Pre-K through Grade 2
(Visual Arts focused)
What is an art museum and what kinds of artworks will you find there? During this introductory tour, preschoolers and kindergarteners will explore portraits (people), landscapes (places) and very interesting “things” like painted bathrobes, robot sculptures, and art made from assembled toys.
- Making Faces: Exploring Portraits
Recommended for K through Grade 5
(Visual Arts & Social Studies)
What is a portrait? Why do artists make pictures of people? What can we guess about a person by looking at his or her portrait? Raise questions about how children and families lived in the past, with emphasis on daily life, by studying, comparing and contrasting portraits from the museum's collection.
- Earth, Sea and Sky: Exploring Landscapes
Recommended for Grades 2 through 5
(Visual Arts and Science)
What is a landscape? How many different kinds of "scapes" are there? What kinds of information do artists include in landscapes? Identify weather conditions, classify clouds and phases of the moon in landscape paintings and photographs from the Akron Art Museum's collection.
- Picturing the Story: Exploring Narrative Artworks
Recommended for K through Grade 5
(Visual and Language Arts)
Is a picture worth a thousand words? Discover your inner storyteller by spinning tales inspired by artworks from the museum's collection that are rich with narrative possibilities. Have fun inventing stories about what is taking place in specific artworks and then illustrating what happens next.
- Artistic Angles: Art & Geometry
Recommended for Grades 2-5
(Visual Arts and Math)
Explore artworks from a whole new angle! Shapes, forms and figures, angles, lines and curves— discover how artists use ideas explored in your math class to create a huge variety of artworks. Use math-centric clues to identify a mystery artwork, choose an artwork and describe it by creating your own math-centric clues and finally try your hand at creating your own math-inspired artwork to take home.
- In Our Own Backyard: Exploring Ohio Art & Artists
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
(Visual Arts and Social Studies)
There are famous artists from Ohio? Of course there are! Learn about artists who lived and worked in Ohio (and Akron!) throughout the past 150 years. What kinds of art did they make? What did they want to show other people about our great state? Could you be the next famous artist from Ohio?
- Mod Squad I: Exploring Modern Painting
Mod Squad II: Exploring Modern Sculpture
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
(Visual Arts focused)
Are you puzzled when you look at works of modern art? Modern art CAN be a puzzle. Let our docents help you put the pieces together! Learn how an abstract artist "sees" his or her subject. What exactly do artists mean when they talk about abstraction? Explore works by artists who took painting in new directions by using line, shape, and color in new and exciting ways.
- Building & Highlights: An Introduction to the Akron Art Museum
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
(Visual Arts focused)
Explore daring architectural ideas and spaces that connect past, present and future as demonstrated by the Akron Art Museum’s recently completed expansion project designed by Viennese architectural firm COOP HIMMELB(L)AU. Docents will lead your group through the museum’s new and renovated spaces in the 1899 and John S. and James L. Knight buildings in addition to introducing you to highlights from the museum’s collection, focused on art produced since 1850.
- Collection Highlights
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
(Visual Arts focused)
Sample the treasures currently on view in the more than 12,000 square feet of gallery space dedicated to displaying the Akron Art Museum’s collection. Docents will lead your group through an introduction to the museum’s collection, focused on art produced since 1850 that includes outstanding examples of turn-of-the-twentieth century realism, American impressionism and an eclectic array of late twentieth-century Pop art, surrealist and post-modern works. Prepare to encounter the work of local and international artists, folk artists, rising stars and some of the most established and respected artists in the art world.
Eating lunch at the Museum
Your group may reserve the museum’s classroom for an extra ½ hour in order to eat bagged lunches immediately before or after your tour. The museum will provide a secure place to store lunches while your group enjoys their tour, but is unable to provide refrigeration.
Groups who would like to purchase lunch through the museum’s food service may pre-order boxed lunches from a special menu. For more information on pre-ordering boxed lunches, contact 330.376.9186 x212 or sParker@AkronArtMuseum.org.
2010 SUMMER YOUTH TOUR PROGRAM
All requests must be made at least 3 weeks prior to the tour date.
All requests are subject to docent availability.
All Summer Youth Tour requests must be submitted online.
CLICK HERE to request your summer youth tour.
Summer Tour Program Times
Tours for Pre-K, K, and 1st grader are 30-45 minutes. Tours for children in grades 2-12 are about an hour long.
June through August, K-12 tours can be scheduled on Wednesdays and Fridays during the following time slots: 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM and 12:30 PM.
Summer Tour Program Group Size
The museum can accommodate up to 60 students per tour. Large groups of students will be divided into smaller tour groups of 10-15, each led by a separate docent. Groups must provide at least 1 adult chaperone for each group of 15 students.
Summer 2010 Tour Options
- Art Recipes: Line, Shape & Color
Recommended for children Ages 4-10
What are the most important ingredients for making a work of art? Learn about three important art elements and how artists use them to create a wide variety of "flavors" and visual treats. You won’t have to worry about a tummy ache after you gobble up this visual feast of a tour!
- Extreme! Weather Landscapes
Recommended for children Ages 4-12
What is a landscape? What kinds of information do artists include in landscapes? How do artists capture the sensations we experience during extreme weather? For answers to these questions and more, explore everything from steamy hot colors in painted summer scenes to the icy wind soundtrack of the Isaac Julien film installation, True North.
- Building & Highlights Tour: An Introduction to the Akron Art Museum
For Children Ages 10 and up
Explore daring architectural ideas and spaces that connect past, present and future as demonstrated by the Akron Art Museum’s recently completed expansion project designed by Viennese architectural firm COOP HIMMELB(L)AU. Docents will lead your group through the museum’s new and renovated spaces in the 1899 and John S. and James L. Knight buildings in addition to introducing you to highlights from the museum’s collection, focused on art produced since 1850. This tour lasts approximately one hour.
