K-12 School Tours
The 2008-2009 School Tour Program is made possible by a generous gift from the Charles E. & Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation.
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 K-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. K-12 school tours are not limited to traditional schools and may include home school groups, scout organizations and after-school programs and clubs.
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 (15 business days) prior to the requested date.All requests are subject to docent availability and schedules.
Visitors can request a tour by either of the following methods:
- ONLINE: To request a tour online CLICK HERE. Please provide all requested information and be sure to click "submit."
- PHONE: Call the museum's tour hotline at 330.376.9186 x247 and leave a detailed message with the following information:
- Your name, the school/group's name and a phone number and/or e-mail address where you can be reached
- The preferred date and time of tour
- The tour subject/theme
- The age/grade level of the students and the subject you teach
- The number of students and adult chaperones in the group
Tour Group Size
The museum can accommodate tours of up to 60 students. Tour requests for groups of more than 60 students must be divided into smaller groups and across multiple dates. Large groups of students will be divided into smaller tour groups of 10-12, each led by a separate docent. K-12 tour groups must provide at least 1 adult chaperon for each group of 10-12 students.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.September through May of each school year, K-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 we offer a special K-12 Summer Tour Program. For information about current K-12 Summer Tour options CLICK HERE.
Bussing and Substitute Coverage Reimbursements
Special funds are available to help K-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.
TOUR OPTIONS
K-5 ArtSource Tours
ArtSource tours were designed for students in grades 1-5 and promote the strengthening of visual literacy skills and appreciation for the arts. During ArtSource tours, specially trained docents (museum guides) lead students through the museum's collection galleries and initiate focused discussions about specially selected groups of art objects and hands-on art activities. All ArtSource tours support the Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts and other academic areas, such as science, language arts and social studies. Programs are thematic and organized by grade level.
- PreK-K – People, Places and Things
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.
- 1st Grade - Making Faces: Exploring Portraits
(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.
- 2nd Grade - Earth, Sea and Sky: Exploring Landscapes
(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.
- 3rd Grade - Picturing the Story: Exploring Narrative Artworks
(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.
- 4th Grade - In Our Own Backyard: Exploring Ohio Art & Artists
(Visual Arts and Social Studies focused)
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?
- 5th Grade - Mod Squad I: Exploring Modern Painting
Mod Squad II: Exploring Modern Sculpture
(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.
Middle School Tours
Middle school teachers are encouraged to bring their students to tour our special exhibitions. Please see the exhibition calendar for details about upcoming shows.
Middle school teachers may also request docent-led tours of the collection galleries that focus on works connected by a specific topic or media.
High School Tours
High school teachers are encouraged to bring their students for docent-led tours of special exhibitions. Please see the exhibition calendar for details about upcoming shows. High school teachers may also request docent-led tours of the collection galleries that focus on works connected by a specific topic or media or self-guide tours of the galleries. Self-guided tours can only be scheduled during the museum’s regular business hours. Please see the exhibition calendar for details about upcoming shows.
