Teachers: Prior to your tour, please discuss museum manners, especially the most important rule of all: do not touch any works of art. Even the slightest fingerprint contains destructive oil and chemicals. Perhaps the best guideline to remember is: always stay an arm’s-length from the gallery walls. We appreciate your help in making this clear to our young guests before they even come through our door. Its much better to be redundant about this early on, than to admonish a student during a tour, which can be traumatic for that student. We realize that we only have an hour with you, and that hour will have a lasting impression on each child. We want it to be a positive one!

SUGGESTED PRE-TOUR ACTIVITIES

CLASS DISCUSSION/WRITING ACTIVITY:

Explain to students that R-MWC has been collecting American paintings for many years and that the Maier is the home for the College’s art collection. Ask students to think something special to them that they collect and keep in their homes. Tell students to pretend that their collection will be shared with the public like the College’s art collection, and then write a short description of their collection and three rules that visitors who come to see it must remember.

ART ACTIVITIES

Have a class discussion about what a museum is, explaining that the Maier Museum of Art collects, displays and teaches people about American works of art made during the past 200 years. Look at either printed reproductions from our website, or slides of paintings in the collection with the students and identify landscapes, portraits, still-lives, seascapes, and cityscapes.

Discuss art terms from the vocabulary sheet. Become familiar with the four elements of art listed; line, color, shape and texture. With crayons or paints, make as many different kinds of lines and shapes on a page as possible, using either cool colors or warm colors.

SUGGESTED POST-TOUR ACTIVITIES

WRITING PROJECTS

Describe in writing how you would dress if an artist were coming to school to paint your portrait. What would your clothes and their colors show about the kind of person you are? Would your portrait show you smiling or not? What feelings would you try to show with you expression?

Look at the Maier Museum website and pick a picture you remember seeing on the tour. Write a story that the artist could be telling about with this picture. Share your story with the class.

Pretend you are writing to a friend who has never been to the Maier Museum of Art. Tell about your visit and the best thing about the tour.

ART PROJECTS

Make a self-portrait by looking at a photograph or a mirror. Show yourself in your favorite outfit. Write a paragraph to explain what you were thinking while your picture was being taken.

Draw or paint a still life using objects the teacher sets up in class or using some things of your own. Make a very colorful picture by using the primary and all the secondary colors.

Draw a design or cut shapes from colored paper and magazines; paste the pieces to make a collage showing many different kinds of lines, shapes, and textures. Imaging that your design is a quiet or a noisy one and give the picture a title that explains what sound it makes.