Learning Through Art: Available Workshops

ARTiculation: Art Speaks to All Subjects

Looking for new ideas to motivate students and enhance your curriculum? Come experience inquiry-based learning strategies and activities designed to teach curriculum standards in math, science, language arts, social studies, and art. Use the MFAH collection of European art to tap into the diverse learning styles of all your students. Gain lesson plans, techniques, and thinking routines that incorporate higher-order thinking strategies and visual-arts connections to the classroom.

LTA + PBL = HOTS: Learning Through Art + Project-Based Learning = Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Integrate critical-thinking skills and strategies in your classroom by exploring works of art in the Museum’s collection of American art and the Cullen Sculpture Garden. Connect science, social studies, language arts, and math lessons with project-based/hands-on activities that include motivating techniques for ELLs. Receive a cross-curricular unit plan, online quiz games, and interactive strategies that foster the design-thinking process in which students identify challenges, gather information, generate potential solutions, and refine ideas.

Techniques with TEKS

Explore how Learning Through Art at the MFAH bridges disciplines and curriculums to enable students to think critically and creatively. Learn innovative ways to incorporate TEKS and STAAR-aligned lessons while you experience motivating games, hands-on activities, quality literature, and a literacy unit plan. Investigate ways to strengthen literacy development and cognitive-thinking skills. Discover connections within and between TEKS and how works of art can foster a higher degree of student engagement.

Beyond the Canvas and into the Classroom

Motivate your students to think beyond basic skills in order to become self-directed, critical learners who work collaboratively while continuously using metacognitive skills. Investigate how works of art from the Renaissance period can enrich content area lessons while encompassing a wide range of curriculum standards. Educators receive content resources, curriculum supplements, and online quiz games designed to facilitate inquiry-based methods bringing the MFAH collection of world art into the classroom.

Cultures across the Curriculum

Art can take you and your students to other countries, cultures, and centuries. Explore the award-winning elementary and middle school Learning Through Art at the MFAH curriculum while you “travel” through the Museum’s collection of world art and incorporate it into lessons for language arts, math, science, social studies, and art. Higher-level thinking skills combine art with TEKs to highlight engagement across the curriculum using technology, the scientific method, geometry, geography, and informational text.

STEM ⇒ STEAM ⇒ STREAMS

MFAH and STREAM make a great TEAM! Add an “R,” “A,” and “S” to STEM education by engaging in project-based learning experiences that bridge the Museum’s collections of world art with K–8 TEKS in Science, Technology, Reading/Writing, Engineering, Art, Math, and Social Studies. Including the “R” for literacy, the “A” for art, and the “S” for social studies promotes collaboration across the disciplines for critical thinking amidst real-world learning. Receive interactive, project-based learning activities that foster the design-thinking process in which students identify challenges, gather information, generate potential solutions, and test results.

20th-Century Art with 21st-Century Skills

Empowering educators with transformative resources and strategies, Learning Through Art at the MFAH supports teachers with a variety of engaging ways to foster the “Four Cs” of higher-order thinking skills: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. Investigate ways to invigorate your classroom with innovative ideas to promote growth mindsets, integrate inquiry-based questioning strategies, and encourage deeper learning through observation of paintings and sculptures that ultimately impact student achievement.

#TeachingTools@MFAH

Fill your “teaching toolbox” with works of art from the MFAH collections as they relate to process standards and project-based learning activities designed for use across the curriculum. “Nail down” strategies for higher-order thinking skills used with inquiry-based methods to build a community of motivated, lifelong learners. Encourage thinking “out of the box” with hands-on experiences designed for all students—from ELL to gifted.

The Learning Through Art program is endowed by Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff.

All Learning and Interpretation programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive endowment funds provided by Louise Jarrett Moran Bequest; Caroline Wiess Law; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Ballard; Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Tate; the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; Virginia and Ira Jackson; the Favrot Fund; Neiman Marcus Youth Arts Education; gifts in memory of John Wynne; and gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.