K-12 Tours
Pre-K through Grade 12 School Tours
Pre-K through Grade 12 School Tours
2011-2012 School Tours are made possible by a gift from The Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust.
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 a limited number of adult chaperones when scheduled by a teacher, instructor or school official 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.
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 during regular business hours 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.
Scheduling a Tour
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.
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 schedule your School group tour now.
Click HERE to schedule your NON-School group tour now.
After you submit your online request, a museum representative will contact you within 3 business days. Your tour is officially scheduled upon your receipt of mailed or e-mailed tour confirmation materials.
For questions or communication regarding your tour, contact Maria Iafelice at 330.376.9186 x231 or Miafelice@akronartmuseum.org.
Tour Dates and Times
During the school year (September-May) Pre-K through Grade12 tours are available Wednesday through Friday starting at 9:30 am with the last tour starting at 3:30 pm. Tours may be scheduled through 8:00 pm on Thursday evenings.
June through August, tours are available on Wednesdays and Fridays only.
Tours for Pre-K through Grade1 are around 45 minutes. Tours for children in Grades 2-12 are about an hour long.
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.
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. The maximum group size for tours, including adult chaperones, is 75 people. Large groups will be divided into smaller tour groups of 10-15 students with chaperones, each led by a separate docent. School groups must provide at least 1 adult chaperone for each group of 15 students.
Requests for groups of more than 60 students or 75 people must be divided across multiple dates.
Busing 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 $175 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 addresses Ohio Academic Content Standards. Each tour, regardless of the theme or artworks covered, thoroughly addresses benchmarks and grade level Indicators for two Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts— Analyzing and Responding and Valuing the Arts/Aesthetic Reflection. Specific tours and themes address additional 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.
Collection-based tours
Art Recipes: Line, Shape & Color (Visual Arts focused)
Recommended for Pre-K through Grade 2
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 (Visual Arts focused)
Recommended for Pre-K through Grade 2
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 (Visual Arts & Social Studies)
Recommended for K through Grade 5
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 (Visual Arts and Science)
Recommended for Grades 2 through 5
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 (Visual and Language Arts)
Recommended for K through Grade 5
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 (Visual Arts and Math)
Recommended for Grades 2-5
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 (Visual Arts and Social Studies)
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
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: Exploring Modern Painting and Sculpture (Visual Arts focused)
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
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 (Visual Arts focused)
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
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.
Collection Highlights (Visual Arts focused)
Recommended for Grades 3 through Grade 12
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.
