ERC Online Resources
The Seattle Art Museum has created several Educator Resource Guides for our special exhibitions and permanent collections. These guides connect themes from exhibitions and installations to classroom learning and include looking questions and art activities for students. Print versions of guides are available for check out at the Education Resource Center.
Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act: Pre-Visit Activity: Grades 4-6
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): October 15, 2009 - April 11, 2010.
Explore the elements of art through Alexander Calder's animal sculptures.
Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act: Pre-Visit Activity: Grades 7-12
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): October 15, 2009 - April 11, 2010.
Examine the elements of art and principles of design through Alexander Calder's stabiles.
Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act: Pre-Visit Activity: Grades K-3
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): October 15, 2009 - April 11, 2010.
Becoming familiar with color in art through Alexander Calder's maquettes.
Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2012.
Educator resource guide for the exhibition, exploring topics such as Documenting Cultural History, Honoring the Australian Landscape and Contemporary Visions from the Ancient World.
Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2017.
Educator guide for the special exhibition.
Beauty and Bounty: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2011.
This guide is designed as a resource for educators visiting the exhibition Beauty & Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration on a self-guided visit (without a SAM Docent). With this guide, educators can explore the following themes:
1) Nature as Beauty/Nature as Resource
2) The Exploration of the American West
3) History and Truth
Educator Resource Guide: Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): October 11, 2012-January 13, 2013.
Activity suggestions and images that connect the special exhibition Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris to works from SAM's permanent collection. Topics include Art as Narrative: Focus on Language Arts, Art as Identity: Focus on Social Studies and Art as Material: Focus on Visual Arts.
Gauguin & Polynesia: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
This special cross-cultural guide for educators and students includs pre and post-museum visit materials and related web and TRC (Teacher Resource Center) resources for K–12 teachers wishing to integrate Gauguin & Polynesiainto student's classroom learning.
Indigenous Beauty: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2015.
Educator guide for the exhibition with images from the exhibition and SAM's collection. Three units cover Ceremony, Storytelling, and Cultural Exchange.
Intimate Impressionism From the National Gallery of Art Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2015.
SAM’s Educator Resource Guide highlights three works from the exhibition and explores ideas about leisure, artistic collaboration, innovation, and public vs.private spaces. Includes looking questions and an in-depth art activity.
Japan Envisions the West: 16th–19th Century Japanese Art from Kobe City Museum : Educators Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2007.
The Educators Resource Guide presents suggested activities and ways for educators to facilitate dialogues about art and cultural exchange with students in grades 3–12. Although this content was originally created to accompany a visit to the exhibition Japan Envisions the West: 16th–19th Century Japanese Art from Kobe City Museum, the activities and questions to consider can easily be adapted to other works of art found online, in books or in the permanent collection of the Seattle Art Museum.
Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2016.
Educator guide to the special exhibition, with background information, looking questions, and an activity suggestion.
Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2009.
This is an interactive resource to enhance your classroom's study of American history, art and culture through primary visual resources. Using images of works of art from the Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness exhibition, historical photographs, articles and letters, this interdisciplinary resource encourages teachers and students to think critically about how American history is taught in the classroom, presenting alternative narratives and using material culture as an inroad to critical discussion.
Luminous: The Art of Asia: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2011.
This guide is designed to extend the museum experience, connect themes from the exhibition to your student's classroom learning and build critical thinking through SAM's resources. We encourage you to use these materials to prepare your students for a visit to the exhibition, to prompt reflection on your experience back in the classroom or to encourage students to create their own inventive and imaginative works inspire by this exhibition of SAM's permanent collection.
Miró: The Experience of Seeing Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2014.
Educator guide with activities covering the elements of art and 21st Century Skills of collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking based on images from the exhibition and from SAM’s permanent collection.
Nick Cave: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2011.
Designed to help extend the museum experience and connect themes from the exhibition Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth to your student’s classroom learning, this guide can be used to prepare your students for a visit to the exhibition, to prompt reflection on your experience back in the classroom or, to encourage students to create their own inventive and imaginative works inspired by this extraordinary artist.
Peru: Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2013.
Educator guide for the exhibition with three project units based on art from the exhibition and from SAM's permanent collection. Units meet Washington State and Common Core Standards of Learning along with 21st Century Skills Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Communication; and cover a wide range of subject areas like science, math, art, social studies and geography.
Pop Departures City Dwellers: Contemporary Art from India
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2014.
Lesson suggestions based on works of art in these two special exhibitions and from SAM's collections. All activities are tied to Washington State, Common Core, and National Art Core Standards, along with 21st Century Skills.
Quileute: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2010.
This instructional guide is focused on the Seattle Art Museum’s exhibition Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves and is designed for educators to facilitate student learning both at the museum and in the classroom.
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2013.
Download this useful guide offering insight into, and curriculum ideas inspired by, the exhibition Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Treasures of Kenwood House, London. Units discuss portraiture through images in the special exhibition and SAM's permanent collection.
S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2008.
The Educator Resource Guide provides general background information on the history, art and culture of Coast Salish First people through in depth exploration of eight works of art. The activities suggested in all of these resources can easily be adapted to other works of art found online, in books or in the permanent collection of the Seattle Art Museum.
S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education, Chapter 1: Gifts of the Earth
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2008.
The Seattle Times Newspapers In Education program provides electronic newspapers, learning programs and online activities to educational organizations throughout Puget Sound communities to help foster literacy and real world learning. The four chapters in the S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education each highlight one work from this special exhibition of Northwest Coast Native American art.
S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education, Chapter 2: Gifts of Our Ancestors
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2008.
The Seattle Times Newspapers In Education program provides electronic newspapers, learning programs and online activities to educational organizations throughout Puget Sound communities to help foster literacy and real world learning. The four chapters in the S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education each highlight one work from this special exhibition of Northwest Coast Native American art.
S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education, Chapter 3: Gifts of Our Families
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2008.
The Seattle Times Newspapers In Education program provides electronic newspapers, learning programs and online activities to educational organizations throughout Puget Sound communities to help foster literacy and real world learning. The four chapters in the S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education each highlight one work from this special exhibition of Northwest Coast Native American art.
S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education, Chapter 4: Gifts of Our Artists
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2008.
The Seattle Times Newspapers In Education program provides electronic newspapers, learning programs and online activities to educational organizations throughout Puget Sound communities to help foster literacy and real world learning. The four chapters in the S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists: Newspapers in Education each highlight one work from this special exhibition of Northwest Coast Native American art.
Seeing Nature Educator Resource Guide
By Seattle Art Museum.
Date(s): 2017.
Educator Resource Guide for the special exhibition, which "reviews the ways artists translate nature into paintings by looking closely at the world around
them." Includes Looking Questions and Activity Suggestions.
Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style: Educator Resource Guide
By Seatlte Art Museum.
Date(s): 2016.
SAM’s Educator Resource Guide highlights three works by three different artists: Yves Saint Laurent, Louis André Gabriel Bouchet, and Nick Cave. Each piece responds to the social events of their time and reflects on issues of expression, gender, and class. Includes looking questions for younger and older students, and a collaborative art activity.
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
Learn more about Equity at SAM