Educator Resources

This lesson plan focuses on a single work of art from the museum’s global collection and provides sequential activities and extensions that activate students’ critical and creative thinking skills.

Word banks are a great tool for helping you improve your vocabulary, spelling, and creative writing skills. This activity uses works of art to help you generate your own word bank.

Word banks are a great tool for helping you improve your vocabulary, spelling, and creative writing skills. This activity is designed to help you make connections between words and images.

Works of art can tell stories. This activity asks you to look carefully at works of art in order to find the key elements of a story.

Featuring six artworks from the Art Institute’s collection, each video from SmartHistory can be used as a resource in your teaching or shown in your classroom.

Take a short journey into the museum’s beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms.

Using three artworks from the Art Institute’s collection, these videos unpack a central theme and use innovative visual storytelling to highlight the choices artists made to shape form and meaning in their works.

What colors, shapes, and patterns do you see in this window? How would the world outside appear if you were looking through it?

What can you guess about the person who lives in this room? Use clues to learn about Vincent van Gogh and the unique decorations in his bedroom.

Create your very own portrait using unconventional materials and objects, just like Francis Picabia. Explore the read aloud link for “Walter was Worried” by Laura Vaccaro Seeger to make connections between portraiture and personalities.

Play with texture, smooth lines, and cracked surfaces using Yoko Ono’s Mended Petal. Enjoy the read aloud link for “Inch by Inch” by Leo Lionni and discover how the inchworm can measure this tall sculpture and other objects.

The artist Willem de Kooning used large movements and brush strokes known as “action painting”. Explore this technique and more by creating shapes of your own.

Strike a pose! Explore movement and create your very own sculpture inspired by the work of Alberto Giacometti. Enjoy the read aloud link to make connections between this artwork and the book, “From Head to Toe” by Eric Carle.

Go on an adventure with a woman and her dog. Use your imagination to create a story and enjoy the read aloud link to make connections between this sculpture and “Not a Stick” by Antoinette Portis.

This manual can be used in multiple ways by teachers wishing to use American art to enrich students’ understanding of various subject areas and to develop and sharpen cognitive and creative skills.