School Tours
MORE THAN THE ARTS: CONNECTING CURRICULUM
A visit to the AGH can enhance learning beyond the arts.
From Languages, History and Social Sciences to Math, Science and Geography, students benefit from learning from multiple perspectives. Artists are story-tellers and communicators, sharing information in ways that resonate with many students.
Exhibition Tours engage young minds. Using the Critical Analysis Process and inquiry-based methodologies, our guides encourage students to look closely, understand the artist’s Creative Process and make connections to curricula beyond the arts. Tours are tailored for each group’s level and interests.
Tours are 60 minutes in length. For students in grades 6 and up, you may plan for independent viewing time after your tours on days when the AGH is open to the public.
Half-Day Tour & Studio programs, our most popular program, where students visit the studio after a tour to creatively respond to the art they have seen. With many options to choose from including painting, sculpture, or collage workshops there is something to compliment every visit. We can recommend creative responses that work well with current exhibitions or you can request something that might fill a need in your curriculum.
Programs last 2 hours, starting at either 9:30 am/10:00 am or 12:00 pm.
Full Day Learning at the AGH
We have several options for Full-Day Learning at the AGH. Exhibitions specific tours, workshops, or specialized programs. There are many ways to dive deep into a subject.
Programs run from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm, and include time and a space for lunch.
Virtual Gallery Visits allows us to bring the AGH to you! A gallery ‘tour’ and or a hands-on activity are just a click away. Choose from tour themes and activities to build your program, and our talented team of educators will do the rest. Classrooms must provide their own art materials.
Tours and Hands-On Activities each take approximately 60 minutes, and may be booked together or separately.
Multiple Visits Build a series of 3-5 half or full day visits to the Gallery, for a cumulative studio activity, and or focussed learning agenda.
Specialized Programs allow us to adapt programs to suit your core curriculum goals. We can work with you to develop a visit to suit you and your students in a non-traditional way, in either a single visit or an ongoing program.
Tour Themes
Discover Art
Selections from the AGH Collection will lead a conversation about different art forms, elements and principles of design, and the choices artists make in their work.
Kinder-Art Exploration
Specifically planned for our youngest learners, we will introduce art-related vocabulary and guide students in looking and sharing their observations and ideas.
Storytelling Through Art
Observe and discuss how art tells diverse stories about our world, each other, and ourselves using examples of historic and contemporary art.
Art & Land
Explore questions about sustainability, ecology, nature, and technology, and our responsibility to share and care for the land that sustains us.
Materials & Process
Uncover the ways that the materials and processes an artist uses are a means of expression and that visual communication is a powerful tool.
Identity & Representations of Self
Consider how artists use their own likeness as inspiration for their work and to explore the way that our identities are formed by various influences.
Hands On Activities
Painting
Choose from either watercolour or acrylic. Students will create a finished painting that reflects the exhibitions on display during their visit.
Drawing
With a focus on illustration and character design, students will explore line, shape and story in their work.
Collage
Students will explore shape, colour, texture, layers and a variety of materials as they use paper and simple images to create a work of art.
Clay Sculpture
Students will create a small 3-D sculpture using self-hardening clay. The specific technique and subject will reflect the exhibitions on display.
Printmaking
Using simple Styrofoam relief techniques, students will create their own prints that reflect ideas and techniques learned during their visit
Life Drawing (with clothed models)*
Students will work alongside an Instructor and professional life model(s) to learn and develop skills used to draw the human form with confidence. All models are clothed or costumed.
Silk Screen Printing*
Students will create a simple stencil and learn the process of screen printing. Prints may be done on paper, or students can bring their own T-shirt. This activity is suitable for full day visit only
*This activity is suitable for secondary students only.
Program Fees
School programs are available for Kindergarten through Grade 12.
Minimum Group size: 16 (smaller groups will be charged for 16)
Maximum Group size: 60
For larger groups, please contact education@artgalleryofhamilton.com”
- Tour-Only – $8.00
- Tour & Studio (Half Day) – $12.00
- Full Day program – $16.00
- Virtual programs – $8.00 for tour or hands-on activity, $12.00 for both
- Multi-visit and Specialized Experiences: please contact us to explore your ideas.
Subsidies are available, please contact us for more information.
Please note: School Visits are now full until June 2023. Thank you for a great year!
We look forward to welcoming you to the AGH in Fall 2023.
From the Canadian Art Collection
Forbidden Fruit 1889
George Agnew Reid (Canadian 1860-1947)
oil on canvas, Gift of the Women's Committee, 1960