Information for School Groups

BMAC’s friendly and knowledgeable staff and volunteer docents ensure that your school group will be inspired, surprised, and delighted by your visit to the museum.

We recommend that school groups allow two hours for a visit that will begin with a guided tour and conclude with an engaging, age-appropriate activity based on our current exhibits. Visits may be scheduled weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and occasionally on weekends. Admission is free for public school groups, $35 for other groups of 2-10, and $45 for groups of 11-25. Please try to schedule your visit at least two weeks in advance.

What can you expect during your visit?

Guided Tour

After a brief introduction to the museum, trained docents will engage students in inquiry-based discussion focused on specific works of art. The pace of each tour and number of artworks viewed varies, in order to allow time for focused observation and exploration in small groups. Guided tours will focus on a selection of work from the current exhibits.

Activities

Designed especially for K-6 school groups, activities are based on the artwork students will view during their guided tour. They may include hands-on art projects, book readings, or a writing responses. Through June 23, 2013, we are offering the following activities:

CREATIVITY WITH SHAPES

This activity for grades K-1 is a fun way to learn more about basic design concepts such as shape, size, color, and figure-and-ground relationships. By moving two-dimensional pieces on a large, colored ground, young children are introduced to repetition, variation, positive and negative space, and contrast. Young artists learn a simple, no-mess way to apply glue to affix shapes to the colored ground. You’ll want to have an exhibit of the finished results back at school!

CAMOUFLAGE ACTIVITY

Liu Bolin’s photographs of his clothed body, painted so as to disappear into various surroundings, inspired this participatory exhibit about camouflage in nature. Liu chooses camouflage as a metaphor for individuals and their place — or lack of it — in contemporary Chinese society. His art also reminds us of creatures for whom camouflage is a means of survival.

After a tour of the exhibits, a BMAC educator and students discuss what they know about camouflage in nature, and we look at some examples in the books in the Ticket Gallery. The focus is on two main types of camouflage in nature: crypsis and mimesis. Students choose to draw a creature or use one of the many outlines provided to color a creature to place in one of the four habitats painted on large wall panels in the exhibit. The goal is to create a creature that is difficult to discern – artistic camouflage, almost like that of Liu Bolin.