pARTners
About pARTners
The pARTners program brings every fourth-grade student in the Salt Lake City School District to the UMFA each year. Tours explore creativity in our world through hands-on, engaging experiences that connect the Museum's global and diverse collection to Utah Core Standards and students' personal experiences. Teachers prepare students for their field trips with short creativity warm-ups in their classrooms; at the end of their visits, students wrap-up with an in-museum art-making activity. As one of UMFA's longest-running programs, the goal of pARTners is to provide valuable arts learning experiences that foster visual literacy, creativity, critical thinking, and effective communication.
Tour Theme: How to Look at a Work of Art
Train your artistic eye and develop visual literacy as we practice looking closely at details to interpret works of art using visual evidence. Our world is full of images and it is important that we can read them, discover their meaning, and examine why artists make the choices they do. We will discover how to look at works of art through sketching, storytelling, and games, asking questions about what we see, and making looking at art fun! Each tour highlights traveling and temporary exhibitions and art workshops change each semester.
Pre-tour Lesson:
How to Look at a Work of Art
pARTners tours are:
- Interactive, engaging, question-based, object-centered.
- Aligned with Utah Core Standards for fourth-grade and 21st-century learning skills promoting critical thinking, creativity, and communication.
- Available by appointment Tuesday–Thursday, and need to be scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance. Limited space is available.
- Tour lasts an hour but can be adapted to shorter or longer periods of time by request.
- 30-minute art making activity after tour.
The Jeffery & Helen Cardon Foundation
Partner's Tours Curriculum and Lesson Plan Archive
Winter 2023 | Storytelling
Come explore a world full of stories at UMFA! This semester SLCSD's 4th grade students will experience different types of stories and storytelling methods to look at and discuss art. Stories from around the world and our new special exhibition, Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, will be highlighted. Students will learn about visual narrative and uncover clues and details hidden in works of art that reveal secrets, mysteries, facts, and questions. Thanks to our friends at the UofU Book Arts Program, each participant will make a comic book and create their own incredible story!
Pre-tour Lesson:
Storytelling
Fall 2022 | How to Look at a Work of Art!
This fall, students and their teachers will train their artistic eye and develop visual literacy as we practice looking closely at details to interpret works of art using visual evidence. Our world is full of images and it is important that we can read them, discover their meaning, and examine why artists make the choices they do. We will explore how to look at a work of art through sketching, storytelling, and games, asking questions about what we see and making looking at art fun! After our tour, we will make art that we can carry inspired by the new exhibition, Air.
Pre-tour Lesson:
How to Look at a Work of Art!
Winter 2022 | Pattern!
UMFA is thrilled that pARTners tours will be back in the galleries beginning February 2022! This semester, 4th graders and their teachers in SLC School District will explore the Museum's global collection through pattern. Patterns are everywhere! They can be simple or complicated, inspired by nature or math, and can even be symbolic of an idea or feeling - a secret idea hidden in a work of art! Explore amazing patterns from around the world as we dice into repetitions of colors, dots, lines, and spots!
Pre-tour lesson:
Pattern!
Fall 2021 | How to Look at a Work of Art
This fall, students and their teachers will train their artistic eye and develop visual literacy as we practice looking closely at details to interpret works of art using visual evidence. Our world is full of images and it is important that we can read them, discover their meaning, and examine why artists make the choices they do. We will discover how to look at a work of art through sketching, storytelling, and games, asking questions about what we see and making looking at art fun!
Pre-tour lesson:
How to Look at a Work of Art
Winter 2021 | Elements of Art
For their second pARTners digital field trip, 4th grade students and teachers in SLCSD will discover the elements of art: line, shape, color, texture, and space! This digital field trip will introduce the elements of art as building blocks for artistic expression and investigate different ways artists use these elements to communicate ideas and tell stories. Students will gain confidence in their ability to connect with and talk about works of art, as well as cultivate their own creativity as they use the elements for inspiration and relaxation.
Pre-tour Lesson:
Elements of Art
Post-tour Lesson:
Elements of Art
Fall 2020 | How to Look at a Work of Art
This fall, students and their teachers will train their artistic eye and develop visual literacy as we practice looking closely at details to interpret works of art using visual evidence. Our world is full of images and it is important that we can read them, discover their meaning, and examine why artists make the choices they do. We will discover how to look at a work of art through sketching, storytelling, and games, asking questions about what we see and making looking at art fun!
Pre-Lesson:
How to Look at a Work of Art
Winter 2020 | Storytelling
Come explore a world full of stories at UMFA! This semester, SLCSD’s 4th grade students and teachers will experience different types of stories and storytelling methods to look at and discuss art. Stories from around the world will be highlighted as students learn about visual narrative and uncover clues and details hidden in works of art that reveal secrets, mysteries, facts, and questions. Thanks to our friends at the UofU Book Arts Program, each participant will make a comic book and create their own incredible story!
Pre-tour Lesson:
Storytelling
Fall 2019 | Compare | Contrast
Pre-Tour Lessons:
Compare | Contrast
Post-tour Art-Making Workshop:
Instructions
Roll a Portrait Game Card
Dice Template
pARTners winter 2019 | Elements of Art
Pre-Tour Lessons
Color
Line
Shape
Space
Texture
Museum Manners
Post-Tour Lessons
Agamograph art-making activity
Fall 2018 | How to Look at a Work of Art
Pre-Tour Lessons
Post-tour Lesson | Thaumatropes art-making workshops
Winter 2018 | Elements of Art!
For their second UMFA visit this year, 4th grade students and teachers in SLCSD will explore the galleries through the elements of art: line, shape, color, texture, and space. They will discover the elements of art as building blocks for artistic expression through games, art activities, and hands-experiences, and will explore how and why artists around the world make works of art. Throughout their tour, students and teachers will increase their comfort in talking about art, and ultimately see themselves as creative people! All curricula is integrated into Utah Core Standards and pre and post curricula highlights ways to incorporate the elements of art into other subjects through short bell-ringer activities and mindfulness workshops.
Fall 2017 | The Senses!
We are thrilled to welcome back 4th grade students and their teachers in Salt Lake City School District to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts after our 18-month renovation! This fall the pARTners program will explore our reimagined galleries using The 5 Senses to engage, connect, and critically reflect on the art and ideas between the Museum’s walls. We will explore artworks through exciting art making, discussions, and hands-on experiences with sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch and leave our own mark in UMFA’s new ACME Lab exhibition Las Hermanas Iglesias: HERE, HERE. All curricula is integrated into Utah Core Standards and pre and post curricula highlights ways to incorporate the 5 senses into other subjects through short bell-ringer activities and mindfulness workshops.
Winter 2017 | Careers in Art
This curriculum highlights careers in art through a Museum experience delivered to the classroom. Students will handle authentic art objects from the education collection, get a sneak peek into our Modern and Contemporary gallery reinstallation, and curate their own digital exhibition. Pre- and post-lessons will guide students in role play as professional artists, curators, and art critics
Fall 2016 | Land Art, Landscape and the Environment
During the hour-long presentation fourth-grade students will investigate the way artists use texture, color, repetition, space, and movement in landscapes; handle and examine authentic art objects from around the world; and engage collaboratively in a range of discussions to build connections. The presentation will culminate with a technology-based project, allowing each student to create their own photograph to be part of a whole-class artwork.