Worcester Art Museum/GPS Third Grade Collaboration
Ruth Suyenaga, Art Teacher
The spring of 2006 will be the tenth year of this program. All ten third grade classes at Helen Mae Sauter School and Elm Street School each year visit the Worcester Art Museum after learning about the collection in interdisciplinary units taught by their art teachers and classroom teachers.
The Worcester Art Museum has been cited as one of the nation's ten best medium sized museums and our goal is to make this introductory trip to an art museum a very positive experience. Approximately 2400 future museum goers have resulted from this collaboration between the Gardner Public Schools and the museum since this program began.
Because the students are quite well oriented to the museum's collection by viewing slides at school before their visit as well as learning about the categories of art (landscape, seascape, portrait, etc.), they are very excited to encounter the magnificent art work from five centuries and many countries, such as France, Greece, Iraq, China, etc., at the museum. The WAM Education Department has remarked about how well-informed our students are. The museum's collection of Early American art is one of the focuses of our pre-visit units that tie in to the state curriculum frameworks in third grade social studies.
The HMS PTO and Elm Street School PTO pay for the buses to the museum and a grant from the museum covers the entrance fee for the students and chaperones. We arrange for one parent chaperone for each four students. After the one hour tour by a museum docent (guide) and lunch, the students return to the museum galleries with their chaperones.
Please note that the museum entrance is free on Saturdays from 10:00-12:00 noon and we hope that you will visit the museum with your family. No preparation is necessary and you are in for a treat! Information about how to get to the museum is at http://www.worcesterart.org/.
What follows is the information sheet that is sent to parent chaperones to orient them to what will happen during the trip. It will give you an idea of what your child will experience at the museum.
Gardner Public Schools/Worcester Art Museum
Collaboration - Grade 3 Program
Dear chaperones,
Thank you for agreeing to chaperone for your child’s visit to the Worcester Art Museum. You will play an important role in making the trip a positive and enjoyable one for the class.
Museums can be intimidating to those who are unfamiliar with them and the school and museum staffs have worked hard to develop an inviting and welcoming type of experience geared to third grade children so that they will come away wanting to return with their families. It is our goal that, with the proper orientation, they will learn to feel comfortable in a museum. I tell the children that to me, a museum is like a wonderful treasure box and that I hope that they will find some things in it that will give them a sense of wonder or delight.
Before the trip, your child has been studying about the museum in art class as well as with their classroom teacher. Upon their return, they will be continuing to study about the art in the museum. I will not be able to go on all of the third grade trips but am available to answer any questions you might have about the following information -- you may call me at school. Please take time to read this and bring it with you on the excursion. I hope you will have a great trip!
Sincerely, Ruth Suyenaga
Gardner Public School Art Teacher & GPS/WAM Program Coordinator
SCHEDULE:
8:30 am - Chaperones arrive at school; assist teacher in giving out nametags, making sure lunches are not forgotten in school, send children to restroom
8:55 - Board bus
9:00 - Depart from Gardner
9:50 - Arrive in Worcester - enter museum at Lancaster St. entrance - take lunches and coats with you off the bus and leave on cart in the lobby -- these will be taken by staff to the conference room; visit restrooms; hang up coats in coatroom off of the lobby; gather in your pre-assigned group
9:55 - Meet docent (museum guide) for tour in the lobby in groups A, B, C (about 16 students per group)
10:00-11:00 - Docent-led tour; thank docent, who will leave
11:00 -11:30 - Lunch in conference room/visit restrooms
11:30 -12:30 - Small groups of 3-4 will go with their chaperones to visit other parts of the museum
12:30 - Meet rest of class in conference room (remember that it is near the Lancaster St. lobby on the second floor)
12:30 - Depart Worcester (we might leave earlier if the children are ready)
1:15 - Arrive in Gardner
UPON ARRIVAL: Please urge your students to visit the restrooms upon arrival at the museum at 9:50 since it will be difficult to take them out of the tour because the group will be going all over the museum. If a child does have to go to the restroom during that hour-long tour, please accompany him or her and arrange with another chaperone to watch your other children. Ask the docent what floor and gallery they will be going to next so you can meet them there.
LUNCH: During lunchtime, you might want to stagger children going to the small restrooms near the conference room and post a chaperone in the hall outside to direct children to them. There are also restrooms in the lobby where you entered.
RULES: Please remind the children about these rules that we discussed in class:
1. Walk -- don’t run, especially on the stairs
2. Always stay with your chaperone
3. Don’t lean against the walls or point too closely at the artwork
4. Speak in a normal voice -- not too loudly -- and respect other visitors
Please be firm with the children in your group, especially about running and being loud. If you find that some are testing the limits and if you have a behavior problem, tell them that you will tell me or the classroom teacher about it and the principal or we will deal out the consequences upon their return to school. If the problem is severe or if you find that the children have had enough of visiting the galleries, return early to the lobby or conference room.
IF STUDENTS GET LOST: Tell students at 11:00 that if they get lost to ask a security guard to take them to meet you at the lobby by the Lancaster St. entrance (where they entered).
11:30-12:30-- YOUR TOUR WITH THE STUDENTS: The museum has four floors of exhibits -- we will be going to only three galleries with the docents. After lunch, you can look at the museum map (available in the kiosk in the lobby where you entered) and see where the children want to go -- pick two or three places -- or just revisit something you saw during the previous hour, or go to see something that they noticed earlier that looked interesting.
Some things that might interest them are: the first floor galleries on Egypt, Greece, other ancient cultures; the fourth floor gallery on pre-Columbian ceramics, sculpture, stonework; the 17th century Dutch gallery with a painting by Rembrandt and many paintings of every-day life on the second floor; the huge painting of the shipwreck which we saw a slide of -- it is in the 16-19th century British gallery, a few rooms down from the Impressionists on the second floor; the Jepson Gallery of American art and the contemporary art galleries on the third floor. Since you have only an hour, it would be better to visit a few galleries at a leisurely pace rather than speeding through many of them.
Please make sure that all of the children are with you when you go from gallery to gallery and insist that no one goes on ahead to another room without the whole group.
HOW TO TALK TO CHILDREN ABOUT THE ARTWORK: You might want to ask the students what they think or feel about a specific part of an artwork or you might want to have them simply contemplate the artwork. It is not as important here that the children be "learning about the pictures" as to absorb and enjoy the artwork, so you needn’t feel anxious to ask the "right" questions (there really aren’t any questions that are more right than others). An attitude of enthusiasm and curiosity on your part is more important than a scholarly approach.
PLEASE DO NOT VISIT THE GIFT SHOP: Because of the size of our group and the fact that the museum shop is small and full of delicate and expensive things, we have not made arrangements to visit it. It would not be fair to the other students if certain groups went there and purchased things, so please do not take your group to the shop.
AFTER THE TRIP: Please do let us know what went well and what didn’t so that we may improve upon the trips next year. Thank you for your help!