Resource Guide on Multicultural Art Activities and Field Trips
Multicultural Art is the study of field activities that helps children and students get the experience of history and art in the real world. The activities may include visits to museums or field trips that engage students and teachers. Children get a chance to visit local art exhibitions, children museums, and historical places suitable for the growth of children, and field trips that offer diverse sets of a learning experience (John, 2009). However, a school program aiming at engaging in such field trips should inform the children’s parents before the trips to get consent and conditions of the available children. Therefore, Chicago has various locations that offer virtual and online field trips helping the school system chose the best for the benefit of child’s education. For example, Chicago Children’s Museum, Smart Museum Art, Chicago Grant Park, and Wonder Work Oak Park are some of the field trip destinations available in Chicago.
Rationale and Description
Chicago Children’s Museum is located in Chicago Grand Avenue and offers distinctive types of services related to children’s multicultural art. A museum is a place where education meets play and fun. Children have the chance to connect with other children from different schools (ChicagoChildrensMuseum.org, n.d). Furthermore, the services offered in the museum include educational programs related to playing and having fun. For instance, visiting children under the age of 10 can associate in creating dams in the available waterways; creating inventions and laboratory machines such as flying objects; enjoying an outdoor adventure in the tree-house available in the museum; and engaging in educational toys. Therefore, the available resources for children offer a wide range of fun and play activities for children that help in the growth process of the students in art (ChicagoChildrensMuseum.org, n.d). The Museum is a family friendly site which offers a platform where children meet in the presence of their parents and teachers.
Smart Museum Art is also a multicultural art site in Chicago Greenwood Avenue. The place offers a wide variety of services for children that are essential for learning and growth activities. For instance, Smart Museum Art offers programs that incorporate the creativeness of children from different backgrounds. The programs may include children’s art-making whereby the children would have chances to compete with one another based on their schools or homeland (SmartMuseum.edu, n.d). Similarly, the program incorporates a symposium whereby children in the museum would engage in direct interaction sharing ideas learned from their school. Parents and teachers have the chance to explore the talents of their children while the children get the chance to explore different arts from all over the world and time. Ancient and historical art is taught in the museum hence; improving the skills and knowledge of the children in multicultural art.
Additionally, Chicago Grant Park also offers similar services towards children in educational programs that support multicultural art. The park is situated in Chicago with a variety of services to the public including the Chicago annual Lollapalooza Music Festive and Chicago Blues Festival. Similarly, the Grant Park is a public park in Chicago that as well accommodates children in games, art, and historical programs (ChicagoParkDistrict.com, n.d). For instance, the site has a wide variety of kids play activities where parents and teachers find suitable for the growth of the children.
Lastly, Wonder Work is situated in Chicago and offers children playoffs such as a site for playing, engaging, educational programs, historical learning, and performance stage. For example, the programs in Wonder Work include a storybook castle where children can learn and read different storybooks by various teachers from all over the region (Wonder-works.org, n.d). Additionally, Wonder Work Oak has an art studio that helps children develop skills and knowledge concerning the multicultural art about the entire universe. Therefore, children are getting a chance to visit the place develop skills and exposure towards their learning of extracurricular activities.
The four places were selected based on the assumption that children visiting the place would get diverse and unique services concerning the learning of multicultural art and field trips. The four places have parks that have almost every activity suitable for the growth of a child’s brain and exposure.
Letter to Parents
Dear Parents and Guardians
I am announcing that this month we will be offering a school field trip and a chance for the children to experience learning based on our programs in multicultural art. The trip will be destined to the Chicago Children’s Museum.
The trip would be a great opportunity for your child to experience the educational travel and engage in interaction with other children from other schools. The trip is aimed at broadening and reinforcing the concepts of learning outside the classrooms and creates positive memories for the children. The field trip to the museum is planned and funded by the school management and requires the consent of the parents and guardians.
You are requested to join the school in a meeting to discuss the information regarding the field trip.
I look forward to seeing every parent and guardian discuss about the trip, and we hope it would be a great field trip that would benefit the educational program of the children.
Sincerely
School Management
Sample Activities
The trip to the Chicago Children’s Museum would be based on the objective of acquiring special skills to learn about the multicultural art. The essence of the field trip is to engage in education with field work whereby the children would have a chance to enjoy the visual art related to the course in learning. Furthermore, the trip would introduce visual observation skills where the children would have a chance to describe the available ordinary objects in the art. The museum has a wide variety of photographs suitable for learning the visual art and engages in practices that would help a child acquire educational skills in field work. Therefore, the school management would provide the guidelines and the way a child is expected to dress and behave during the trip.
The Chicago Children’s Museum offers the common core standards that guide the field trips benefiting the children. The standards are based on the mission aimed at improving the lives of the children by creating a community that links play and learning (ChicagoChildrensMuseum.org, n.d). Therefore, the museum helps in developing a child’s growth through cognitive, social, emotional, and physical whereby children get a chance to explore the museum’s exhibits and enjoy their learning.
The English language learners would have the chance to interact with other educators in the learning of multicultural art whereby the museum offers a range of learning activities to develop a child’s education. For example, the adaptations are inherent behaviours obtained from the physical characteristics of the children during the process of learning in the museum. The artistic development is obtained from the chance of experiencing the ancient art related to the learning of English language. Furthermore, children will have the chance to challenge their partners in the learning activities to advance their adaptation towards the museum trip.
The sample questions that will promote the development of skills can include; for instance relating to the animals in the museum, did you know that when you visit the museum, the animals are watching you? Did you know that the rules of the museum are not meant to be broken? Are you aware of the rules and regulations while inside a museum? What would be the outcomes of visiting a museum? What are the benefits of having an outdoor field trip? Therefore, these questions would prepare a child before visiting the museum and help in creating awareness towards the learning objectives.
Follow-Up Activities
The art lesson is a way of getting the children to engage in interesting and exciting activities. Therefore, the teacher responsible for the multicultural art field trip should do a follow-up to ensure the children are performing under the core standards. Therefore, the teacher should ensure that the children should clean and store the art materials used in the museum. Similarly, the teacher should ensure that the children have created their artwork using inspirational hobbies and English learning. Furthermore, the art should be created using symbols that express moods, feelings and ideas related to the English language learning. The follow-up activities are related to the common core standard objectives of examining the significance of artwork related to the mood.
Conclusion
The study entails the relationship between the English language learning and the visual learning in children using field trips to a museum. The selected museum is Chicago Children’s Museum which offers a wide variety of activities essential to the growth of children. The museum is located in Chicago and has been benefiting schools and children for the growth and development of learning skills. Therefore, the school management requested for the consent of parents and guardians to allow the children to visit the museum with the aim of enhancing the learning and study of multicultural art which was beneficial to the English language learning.
References
ChicagoChildrensMuseum.org, (n.d). Where play and learning connect. Retrieved from http://www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org/index.php/education/general-info
ChicagoParkDistrict.com, (n.d). Events in the park all year round. Retrieved from http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks/grant-park/
John, D. (2009). Arts & Culture in Chicago. Retrieved from https://folio.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/10244/867/ARTS_AND_CULTURE_IN_CHICAGO_BUFF_SHEET.pdf
SmartMuseum.edu, (n.d). The University of Chicago. Retrieved from http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/visit/
Wonder-Works.org, (n.d). It’s all about learning through creative play. Retrieved from http://www.wonder-works.org/
