Teacher Resources

Mia Teacher Resources include a wide range of materials for K–12 educators and learners. Curriculum materials provide lessons and content that support Minnesota standards. Activities and scavenger hunts engage learners of all ages with Mia’s collection. You can also connect with the collection through mini-podcast audio stops about many favorite artworks.

These resources can also support learning at home. Many of the resources include high-resolution images with discussion questions and/or activities that connect to a wide range of topics and encourage close looking and critical thinking.

The content presented in these learning resources represents one way of talking about each artwork. Throughout these resources, prompts for close looking and open-ended questions invite learners to bring their own life experiences to their interpretation of the art.

NEW! Teachers Guide

Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room: The Alice S. Kandell Collection

Prepare your students for a visit to the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. This guide provides a brief history of Tibet, an introduction to their unique Buddhist practice, and explorations of select sculptures. Discussion questions help students make connections to their experiences.


Teacher Workshops

Making Connections at Mia

Join us at Mia for a free in-person workshop in July to explore ways you can integrate artworks from Mia’s collection into your classroom or a museum visit to support new standards in art and social studies, including ethnic studies.

 

Featured Learning Resources

The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989

Use this guide to facilitate conversations in your classroom before a museum tour or between chaperones and students on self-guided visits.

American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson

Use this guide to facilitate conversations in your classroom before a museum tour or between chaperones and students on self-guided visits.

Reimagining Native/American Art

Use this guide to facilitate conversations in your classroom or between chaperones and students on self-guided visits.

Download the Guide

Arts of Asia

Whether you’re teaching in a new virtual environment or from your classroom, we’ve got you covered with resources designed to support the integration of Asian art and voices into your curriculum. Three primary units invite you to interact with Mia’s collection and community voices through critical thinking, making, and storytelling. Watch an intro to the curriculum here.

More Online Learning Resources

Explore Mia’s collection and learn more with our interactive learning resources.

Explore

Past Exhibition Guides

In the Presence of Our Ancestors: Southern Perspectives in African American Art

In the Presence of Our Ancestors: Southern Perspectives in African American Art” brings together methods of visual storytelling and ancestral memory through the individual practices of artists from the “Black Belt” region of the American South—a term that refers to the region’s black soil, as well as the legacies of African Americans who shaped its social and agrarian culture.

Download PDF

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi features paintings and drawings by Sandro Botticelli and his colleagues with the ancient sculptures that inspired them. Use this guide to facilitate conversations in your classroom before a museum tour or between chaperones and students on self-guided visits.

Self-Guided Resources

Activities for Self-Guided Visits

Connect your students with Mia’s collection and learn more about art through worksheets and self-guided tours.

VIEW SELF-GUIDED RESOURCES

Teaching the Arts

Artwork in Focus and Five Ideas

Explore artworks from around the world and across time with Teaching the Arts features. Take a deep dive into individual artworks with Artwork in Focus or make connections between artworks organized around a theme with Five Ideas.

All Teaching the Arts resources include connections to other artworks and suggested classroom activities. Many of these activities can also be done at home!

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Learning Resources

Think Globally, Act Locally

Whether in Mia’s galleries or via a slideshow at school, students will discuss local, national, and global issues prompted by artworks from Mia’s collection.

Download PDF

Native Art, Native Voices: A Resource for K-12 Learners

An integration of Native voices and art into your curriculum. Native Art, Native Voices includes information about Native cultures, both past and present, and supports Minnesota state standards for visual arts and social studies/U.S. history.

Arts of Africa: A Learning Resource for K-5 Educators and Students

This learning resource provides six lessons with activities designed to integrate the diverse arts of Africa into your classroom.

Download PDF

STEAM Lessons for Secondary Teachers and Students

These experimental STEAM lessons incorporate artworks from Mia’s collection into original lessons that can be taught in your classroom or Mia’s galleries. Where relevant, the lessons include Minnesota academic standards and the benchmarks they support.

View Online or Download PDF

Mexican Prints

This provides a close-up look at 14 prints from Mia’s collection. This resource is designed to be relevant to visual arts, social studies, English language arts, Spanish language, and interdisciplinary lessons for students in grades 6 to 12.
View Online

View Online or DOWNLOAD ENGLISH PDF
View online or DOWNLOAD SPANISH PDF

Audio Stops

Listen and Learn

Audio stops are mini-podcasts that present many of Mia’s highlights and favorite artworks.

EXPLORE ALL AUDIO STOPS