School Groups, K-12

The Peabody Essex Museum’s School Programs aim to support classroom instruction and motivate student learning by providing opportunities to discover and explore unique works of art and culture from around the world. Museum educators design visits for students that connect artworks and objects to classroom lessons and students’ everyday lives. All of our interactive gallery programs are designed to promote students’ visual literacy and critical-thinking skills and connect directly to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for History and Social Science, Language Arts, Art, Mathematics, and Science and Technology. We look forward to hosting you and your students at PEM soon!

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Please view a chart that shows how our guided school visits connect to specific content areas. For specific curriculum standards met, please refer to each program description.

 

Guided School Visits at PEM

Asian Art and Culture

Yin Yu Tang, A Chinese House
Recommended for Grades K-12

Students have the unique opportunity to explore a traditional Chinese home in the United States. Built late in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) in a rural village in China’s Anhui Province, this residence was home to the Huang family for more than 200 years. It was moved piece by piece and re-erected at the Peabody Essex Museum over a seven-year period. Whether your students are studying art motifs, Chinese culture or world history, this program is certain to be a unique and exciting educational experience.

In addition to visiting Yin Yu Tang, students will explore the exhibition Perfect Imbalance, Exploring Chinese Aesthetics. While one half of the group examines the everyday life of the Chinese merchant’s family in Yin Yu Tang, the other half of the class spends time learning about the traditions of Chinese aesthetics by exploring artworks through close looking and discussion, sketching, and writing activities.

Students can preview the house online. When you book a school visit to Yin Yu Tang, you will receive a DVD about Yin Yu Tang to preview in your classroom and a lesson plan for classroom use prior to your visit

Time: one hour | 50 students maximum

Grades K-5 explore the everyday life of a Chinese family living in rural China for the last 200 years by examining household objects, architecture and decorative art.

Grades 6-12 explore the architecture and symbolic decorative elements of a traditional Chinese home and how the impact of economic and political upheavals in China over the last century affected Yin Yu Tang and led to its relocation to the Peabody Essex Museum.

Exploring Asian Art
Recommended for Grades K-8

What are some of the important ideas and symbolic decorative details in art from China, Korea and Japan? Students closely examine paintings, sculptures and objects from everyday life and work collaboratively in gallery activities to gain a deeper understanding of artwork from these countries. You and your students discover the importance of nature in Asian art through the exploration of natural materials and symbolic imagery. This hour-long program can be extended to include a 30-minute art activity.

For related pre-visit materials, please click here.

Time: one hour or 90 minutes with art activity | 60 students maximum

 

American Art and Culture

Unbound: Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM
Recommended for Grades 2-12 and University | Available through November 2012

Discover nearly 40 rare and storied objects from the collection of the Phillips Library at PEM. From a signed first edition of The Scarlet Letter to the oldest piece of paper money in America; from 19th-century Japanese teahouse pop-ups to a remarkable lithographic print of Beethoven with 25 layers of color; from a Bible embedded with a Civil War bullet to a page from the Gutenberg Bible, this exhibition delights the eye and the mind and tells compelling stories. Investigate connections to extraordinary works of art in other galleries or delve into the bookmaking arts with a hands-on activity.

This program also can be tailored to complement other school programs such as Exploring Asian Art or At Home in Salem for a two-hour, thematically linked experience at the museum.

Learn more about this exhibition.

Time: 1 hour to 90 minutes including art activity | 50 students maximum

Life in the 17th Century
Recommended for Grades 3-8

Students focus on the daily life of a family living in 17th-century Salem through the examination of everyday objects and architecture, and make connections between decorative features in the John Ward House, built in 1684, and objects in the museum’s American art galleries. Students also learn to relate past and present through comparisons with their own domestic environment and furnishings.

Time: one hour

At Home in Salem: 1785-1820
Recommended for Grades 3-8

Students envision what it might be like to live in a historic Salem family through guided tours of the Crowninshield–Bentley House, built in 1727 but restored to reflect 1794, and the Gardner-Pingree House, built in 1805. Through careful analysis of American portraits,landscapes and sculptures in the museum’s American Art galleries, students develop an understanding of the conditions of daily life during the height of Salem’s prosperity, identify with people of the past and learn how art and culture reveal clues about the early American Republic.

Time: one hour

The Global Trade: Venturing to Asia
Recommended for Grades 5-8

Attention: Massachusetts 5th-grade teachers! This program is especially recommended for your students.

After the Revolution, America’s international trade flourished. Salem’s seafarers competed to reach Asia in pursuit of tea, silk, spices and porcelain and other fine goods craved by the citizens of a fast-growing nation. Students trace the trade routes plied by Yankee ships from Salem to China and India, and learn about trade, world geography, art and culture. They also learn how the exchange of goods and ideas began a dialogue between nations that to this day mutually influences their economies, cultures and people.

This tour additionally features two multi-part FreePort installations. FreePort invites contemporary artists to explore the roles of trade, exchange and translation in the dynamics of cultural change.

FreePort [No. 005]: Michael Lin animates the history of trade between China and the West and explores artistic production in the past and present. The exhibition includes wall and floor murals of armorial designs, hundreds of replicas of Mr. Nobody (one of the first representations of a European gentleman in Chinese porcelain) and photographs of these replicas being produced in a factory in China.

FreePort [No. 004]: Peter Hutton features the artist’s film At Sea, which depicts the life cycle of a container ship — from mechanized construction in Korean shipyards to a journey across the Atlantic and ending with the manual labor of ship breakers in Bangladesh. The film is joined by a highly detailed model depicting the ship-breaking of an industrial tanker — a marked contrast with celebratory ship models of the Friendship and other 18th and 19th-century trade vessels on view nearby in the gallery.

See below for more information on these FreePort projects and links to videos featuring artist interviews and related interactives.

Time: one hour to 90 minutes

 

English Language Arts

The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann
Recommended for Grades 4-12 and University | February 11-July 15, 2012

Students respond to Jerry Uelsmann's surreal and captivating photographs through creative writing and language-based activities. See full tour description with creative writing option under Visual Arts.

Artful Tales
Recommended for Grades K-5

Students take on the role of detective, artist and author in this interactive exploration of the elements of story writing. Using open-ended questions, sketching and vocabulary activities, students discover how art reveals stories about people, places and time periods. Group storytelling and self-directed learning are included in this tour.

Time: one hour

Images and Words
Recommended for Grades 6-12

Link visual and verbal literacy as well as creative expression in this activity-based investigation of artworks from around the world. In this gallery tour, students sharpen critical-thinking skills by creating poems and narratives in response to critical analysis and observation of captivating works of art.

Time: one hour

 

Visual Arts

Water Stories: Ripple Effect, the Art of H₂0
Recommended for Grades 2-5 | Available through July 8, 2012

How does water inspire artists around the world? How do artists use water imagery to tell stories and convey meaning? What techniques and symbols do artists of different cultures use to suggest and depict water in art? Dive in and discover water in its different states – solid, liquid and gas – and investigate artworks inspired by rivers, geysers, snowflakes, fog and more. On this tour, students are introduced to the concept of water as inspiration and vehicle for story in art from around the world. Students visit the Japanese Art, Chinese Export Art and American Art galleries in addition to the special exhibition Ripple Effect in PEM’s interactive Art & Nature Center. Students engage in close looking, critical thinking and sketching, and in an optional activity in the Art Studio paint their own water-themed stories using watercolor.

For related pre-visit materials, please click here.

Learn more about this exhibition.

Time: 75 minutes or one hour and 45 minutes with art activity

The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann
Recommended for Grades 4-12 and University | February 11-May 13, 2012

Surreal, funny and provocative, Jerry Uelsmann’s photographs are icons of American photo history. His most famous technique -- seamlessly fabricating photographs from unrelated negatives to create imaginary scenes -- cemented his standing as a leading light of nonliteral photography. The exhibition combines Uelsmann’s most celebrated works with many never-before-seen pieces for his first retrospective in 40 years.

Photo collages: Get behind the camera after a tour of the exhibition to examine objects and scenes in and around the museum. In the Art Studio, students combine prints of their digital photos and create fantastical collages (limit 25 students).

Creative writing: Choose one or more of Uelsmann’s photographs as inspiration for a story, poem or personal narrative. Throughout the tour, students participate in group storytelling and vocabulary-building activities tailored to grade level.

See images from the exhibition. Be sure to ask about our Year of Photography exhibitions and programs!

Time: 90 minutes | 25 students maximum for photo collages component

Animals in Art
Recommended for Grades PreK-2

Come see mammals, reptiles, sealife, amphibians, insects and more through the eyes of artists. Discover representations of animals from different cultures and in various artistic media. Students build valuable observation skills while learning about animal characteristics through stories, art and hands-on activities in the Art & Nature Center and other galleries. In the Art Studio, students create collaborative artwork based on their experience with specific objects. In the process of discovery, students employ cooperative learning in natural science and art-based concepts.

For Educators and Students: Download Animals in Art Student Guide »

Time: 90 minutes with art activity

Art and Politics
Recommended for Grades 9-12

How does art reflect the time in which it was created? In what ways does art contribute to our understanding of social and political discourse? In this lesson, students investigate traditional and contemporary works in the museum’s collection and come to understand how art plays a critical role in sociocultural commentary and critique around the world.

Time: one hour

 

Don’t miss these exciting special exhibitions and programs!

Each year PEM hosts a series of dynamic and thought-provoking exhibitions featuring some of the most brilliant artists of today and yesterday. Click here to learn more about the special exhibitions on view this year. To work with a museum educator on a customized visit, call 978-542-1546. In addition, the museum hosts artists and performers who present dynamic and interactive programs that provide unique access to artists and the art-making process while exploring art and culture from around the world.

FreePort [No. 004]: Peter Hutton
Through May, 2013

Peter Hutton has spent nearly 40 years voyaging across the world to create intimate and luminously photographed film studies of place. At PEM, Hutton explores the interface of nature and industrialization. At Sea (2004-2007) depicts the life cycle of a container ship — from mechanized construction in Korean shipyards to a journey across the Atlantic and ending with the manual labor of ship breakers in Bangladesh. The title of the film evokes a loss of perspective, a metaphor born from the experience of a sea journey and its ability to strip us of our sense of scale, time and distance. At Sea is a sweeping meditation on global commerce, labor, geography and the experience of merchant ship travel in the 21st-century. Accompanying the film is a highly detailed model depicting the ship-breaking of an industrial tanker. Commissioned specifically for this exhibition, it may be the only such model of its kind in existence. Visit the FreePort [No. 004] exhibition page to watch interviews with the artist, view an interactive slide show and learn more about the exhibition.

FreePort [No. 005]: Michael Lin
Through spring 2013

Artist Michael Lin began developing a reputation in the late 1990s for painting vast designs on sober architectural sites, interventions that injected a vibrant sense of play. At PEM Lin spotlights the renowned collection of Asian export art. Lin created a sprawling mural of original armorial and heraldic motifs (elaborate coats of arms) that climb up the walls of the Mellon Staircase and along the floor of the Export Silver galleries.

To animate the history of trade between China and the West, Lin also created a large-scale installation comprised of hundreds of replicas of Mr. Nobody, one of the first representations of a European gentleman in Chinese porcelain. Photographs that document the creation of the replicas in a factory in China are interspersed among 19th-century gouaches from the PEM collection that depict the historic porcelain production process.

Visit the FreePort [No. 005] website, to watch interviews with the artist and see related footage of the porcelain factory in China, the team of artists painting the murals at PEM and the works of art that inspired the installation. An interactive component lets you design your own armorial!

About FreePort: Exploring the roles of trade, exchange and translation in the dynamics of cultural change, each FreePort installation is an invitation to a contemporary artist to establish a unique dialogue with the museum and its audiences. Evoking PEM’s 18th-century origins in global trade, FreePort facilitates the free exchange of ideas across disciplines critical to the evolution of a 21st-century museum.

Natural Histories, Photographs by Barbara Bosworth
Opening April 14, 2012

This exhibition features photographs made over the last 20 years by renowned Boston artist Barbara Bosworth around her childhood home in Novelty, Ohio, and other locations significant to her family. Featuring the oldest and youngest members of the family, these touching images explore the joy of youth and the wistfulness of aging, the nature of memory and the passage of time. Also included is a selection of natural history specimens handed down in the artist’s family. This is Bosworth’s major museum debut in New England, and many of the photographs will appear for the first time at PEM. Learn more.

To make a school visit reservation for your class, please click here.