North Carolina Museum of Art

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• Learn more about American history, art history, culture, fine art, museum education, and world history.

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The North Carolina Museum of Art website contains a vast array of wonderful resources and information. Find information for planning a class visit, explore components of the collections and special exhibits, and learn details about upcoming events. This site also includes resources that teachers and students can use at home or in the classroom.Among the materials found on this website are:

• Young Artists, which contains a student gallery, class project murals, and interactive puzzles, a concentration game, and a mosaic activity (the last only for the mac). There is also a Quicktime art journey to help kids learning their ABC’s.
• Teacher Resources, which contains a description of classroom Resources, including exhibits and materials the museum lends free of charge and information for arranging a museum professional visit to schools as well as a Time Line, which contains clickable thumbnails of art works from their collection. For each, there is a text description and a choice of several file sizes of the image.
• Collections Pages, that include highlights of the collections and are arranged by category such as Modern, American, and Ancient. Each image has several file sizes and some have extra text information attached.
• Shockwave Presentations, which enables manipulation (with your mouse) of eight works of art, including the Bust of the Goddess Sekhmet and The Puritan.
• Virtual Tour (move your mouse to travel around the picture; hold down the mouse and press either the options or shift keys to zoom in, the control key to zoom out).

New at the NC Museum of Art are curriculum packets for elementary and middle school classes which feature overhead transparencies. “Looking to Learn: Exploring Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art” teaches students how to look at art while introducing favorites from the museum’s permanent collection. “Discovering America” encourages students to look closely at art and make connections to social studies with the American collection. Curriculum packets are available for a two-week loan period. There is no charge to receive a program. Borrowers are responsible for the safe return of programs.

Educators can teach students about art and nature at the Museum Park. The museum’s outdoor classroom has a giant pinhole camera, a huge whirligig, trails, and much more. “Curriculum oriented tours are offered for relevant grades and subjects.” However, teachers may take their students on self-directed tours of the park and check out a back pack of Park activities. Park brochures explain works of art and aspects of natural science.

Planning a visit to the museum? Guided tours for school groups are offered at no charge with a reservation. Reservations for groups of 10 or more and accommodations for students with special needs are available and must be made at least 3 weeks in advance. For self-guided tours, please contact the museum and give 10 days advance notice. Classroom materials for previsit lessons may be reserved at the same time. Consider a fall tour for ease of scheduling. Contact the tour coordinator in the Education Department at (919) 839-6262, ext. 2144, on weekdays or e-mail: jtaylor@ncmamail.dcr.state.nc.us.

ArtNC is a great place to get educational resources which correspond to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. Special features include Themes and Lessons, a Resource Room, Works of Art, a Teachers’ Lounge, and a Student Center.

The Themes and Lessons feature integrates art into general classroom instruction. Selected works of art from the museum’s collection are used in the curriculum areas of reading, social studies, science and mathematics through lessons and activities.

North Carolina artists are featured in the North Carolina Connections. “Object information, discussion questions and lesson plans for grades 4 and 8 suggest ways of using these works of art to explore North Carolina history and culture within different contexts — from the social studies classroom to the art studio to the museum gallery.”

To integrate art into the teaching of American History, The American Experience section provides lesson plans for grades 9–12. Not only do the works of art selected show how American art has evolved but it tells the story of the history of the United States from the colonial period to today.

The Mystery of the Poison Dart Frog looks at “Costa Rican culture, ecosystems and art-making techniques.” Lesson plans and activities for grades 5–8 can be used in teaching about Central America. There is also an online game which is in both English and Spanish. Students learn about the works of art, Costa Rica, and the animals of the country to solve the mystery.

Art & Nature shows how natural materials are used to make works of art. Natural materials are pigments from the Earth to use in painting, and clay for pottery. Some works of art represent the natural world and others show what the world looked like at the time they were created.

Reading Art “builds essential comprehension strategies and draws parallels between art, reading and writing. The curriculum provides suggestions for teaching students in grades K-8 to use proficient reading strategies to analyze works of art in much the same way they read strategically.”

After exploring the thematic unit, browse for resources designed to reach the age and subjects taught. From the home page, select the grade level and discipline of interest and the search will return just the works of art and lesson plans that match selected areas. Narrow the selection by region to complement any international content of interest or to accompany a work of literature that takes place anywhere in the world.

The Resource Room provides teachers with program information, professional development opportunities and lending materials available for classroom use offered by the North Carolina Museum of Art and other arts institutions around the state. There are dozens of entries, be sure to look for the link at the bottom of the page to move through the next ten items on the list.

The Works of Art feature allows teachers and students to search for works of art by artist, medium, or region of the world. Next to each work of art is a “Q” button. Students can send in their questions about the work and museum personnel will answer it. When the answer is ready, student’s can click an “A&rdquo button. The “Exclamation Point” button has questions for the students to answer.

The Teachers’ Lounge and the Student Center both include forums for discussion. Take a moment to use the online form in the Teachers’ Lounge to sign up for the email updates and program information mailings.

This website is a great beginning; more themes and many more works of art are to be added in the future. Browsing by theme is one of the best ways to locate instructional resources. If you do choose to search, be careful when you narrow your search… if you select to use region, grade and subject you may get no results. Try using two of the three criteria to search and the search results will be better.

Still have questions? The How to Use artNC page will help you! Check it out.