Themed Resources

American Art 1650-1850

This teaching resource highlights works of art chosen by educators to reflect multiple perspectives on the history of the United States. The selection spotlights lesser-known or overlooked stories of the experiences of Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people as well as women. These works are sorted into four themes that highlight relationships among them: Global Connections, Power and Portraiture, Peale’s Museum, and Crafting Identity.

Classroom presentation and book available for download.

Art of China

This teaching resource highlights fifteen objects that reflect the diversity of artwork created in China over the last two thousand years. It is organized around five themes: religious beliefs, belief in the afterlife, exchange between China and the West, reverence for the natural world, and auspiciousness.

Classroom presentation and book available for download.

South Asian Art

This teaching resource highlights eleven works of art that reflect the diverse cultures and religions of South Asia and the extraordinary beauty and variety of artworks produced in the region over the centuries.

Classroom presentation and book available for download.

Looking to Write, Writing to Look

This teaching resource features twenty-five remarkable works of art from the Museum’s collections and uses them as inspiration for an array of writing activities for K-12 students. The works of art represent a wide range of time periods and cultures, and the writing exercises include narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive writing, as well as poetry. Looking to Write, Writing to Look is generously supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.

Available online.

Art Speaks

Art Speaks is a museum visit program designed specifically for fourth-grade classrooms in Philadelphia public schools. The focus is art and the many ways we can learn about and respond to what artists create. The learning strategies are literacy based and connect to The School District of Philadelphia’s fourth-grade language arts curriculum.

Download the teaching booklet, image cards, worksheets, and a classroom presentation.

Finishing Techniques In Metalwork

Works of art made of metal are decorated through a variety of methods, which are referred to as finishing techniques. These techniques can be classified into two major categories: chemical (by chemical processes) or physical (by mechanical means). This teaching kit describes several finishing methods along with a brief history of their use.

Available online.

Learning to Look: Works of Art Across Time and Cultures

This teaching kit uses four themes—Stories, People, Things We Use, and Nature—as lenses for looking at works of art in the Museum's collections. Included are objects and images from a variety of time periods and cultures. Learning to Look: Works of Art Across Time and Cultures was developed by the Division of Education and made possible by the Comcast Foundation, The Delphi Project Foundation, and Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company.

Available online.

Asian Art Teaching Kits

These three teaching kits focus on the arts of Japan, Korea, and China. Each kit includes slides, image cards highlighting works from the Museum's Asian arts collection, and a video, as well as a resource book featuring looking questions, related classroom activity suggestions, a map, time line, glossary, and bibliography. A CD-ROM version of all the elements in the kit is also included.

Asian art teaching kits are made possible by a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation of New York and Stowe, Vermont.

Learning from Asian Art: Japan

This kit features ten objects in the Museum's Japanese collection. Works of art from a variety of mediums and eras have been chosen, from a 4,000-year-old ceramic Jōmon Jar to a nineteenth-century woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai.

Available in an online version.

Learning from Asian Art: Korea

Focusing on the Museum's collection of Korean art, this kit introduces students to ten different works. A wide variety of objects and eras have been chosen, including an eighth-century bronze Buddha and eight hanging calligraphic scrolls by a contemporary Korean artist.

Available in an online version.

Learning from Asian Art: China

Ten different works in the Museum's collection of Chinese art are featured in this kit. The works of art chosen represent different mediums and eras, from a 4,500-year-old ceramic Banshan Jar to an embroidered robe for a Daoist priest made at the end of the nineteenth century.

Available in an online version.

African American Artists: 1859 to the Present

This set includes works of art in the Museum’s collection made by African American artists from the Civil War through the Civil Rights movement. Featuring the works of both known and anonymous artists.

Images of the Middle Ages

This set, featuring works of art from the Museum’s medieval collection, introduces five distinctly medieval art forms and five distinctly different mediums.

The Figure in the Impressionist Era

This set contains six works that discuss paintings from the Museum’s nineteenth-century collection, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance.

Arts of Asia

This set of five works explores art from the Museum’s extensive Asian art collections.

Five Women Artists

This set contains five works that examine works in the Museum’s collection by women artists. Works of art from a variety of mediums and eras have been chosen.

Mexican Art

This set contains works of art created by Mexican artists, including sculpture, painting, and photography.

Pennsylvania Art: From Colony to Nation

This set features six works of American art from the Museum’s collection that were made during the late 18th and early 19th century, including John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Charles Willson Peale’s Staircase Group.

Rodin Museum

Auguste Rodin’s sculptures inspire us. They engage our eyes with dramatic forms, grip our hearts with powerful emotion, challenge our minds with complex ideas, and hold our attention with layered meaning. The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia invites you to integrate Rodin’s art into your classroom curriculum and deepen students’ understanding of his work through close observation and thoughtful response.