Programs for Schools
and Families

Explore a Han Dynasty Chinese Tomb

Schools and the Museum: Working Together

Learning about the world and its people through art can be a joyful experience to share with your students!

The educational programs at the Johnson Museum are a resource for your classes—to link with and enrich your curricula in art, global studies, and language arts. The Museum regularly serves schools from Ithaca and the surrounding areas. We offer programs based on our global permanent collection and special exhibitions. Students learn about the art through activities such as gallery games, object study, drawing, writing, discussion, and studio workshops.

Join us for a Thematic Tour (such as "Animals in Art" or "It's Polite to Stare at These Faces," a look at the Museum's portraits), one of our seven OMNI programs, an in-depth look at a current special exhibition, or let us custom-fit a tour and activities to the needs of your class.

These programs are supported in part through the courtesy of the NEA, New York State Council on the Arts, Arts in Education, the J. M. McDonald Foundation, and Freedom Forum Foundation

Our calendar does fill up quickly during the school year, so we encourage you to book well in advance.

For more information on these and other school programs, fees, and scheduling information, please contact the coordinator of school and family programs at 607 254-4654.

OMNI Program

 

Objects and their Makers–
New Insights (OMNI)

Learn about Museums!

Examine a Chinese artifact that is 3,000 years old!

Meet an Andumbulu and learn an African dance!

Weave a hakima and study an ancient whistle pot!

Encounter the life of a Samurai warrior!

Imagine what it would be like to live in that time and place!

Explore the world and its people through art!

Discover OMNI!

OMNI stands for Objects and their Makers: New Insights.

They are a series of object-based learning units designed for a specific grade level and focusing on a culture represented in the H. F. Johnson Museum's global art collection. The units were developed by Museum education staff with area schools and Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.

When you participate...

Museum staff will come to your classroom and introduce the unit with a slide presentation. They will also bring a study case to keep in your classroom for your students to explore for four weeks. The study case contains artifacts from the culture, games, clothing, videos, books, musical instruments, maps, slides, audio tapes, museum labels, and a teacher's notebook with lesson plans and resources.

During the four-week period, your class will come to the Museum where they will join in gallery activities focused on objects from the specific culture in the collection. Students will participate in an artist-led studio workshop.

The seven OMNI units are:

OMNI 1 - Africa: The Dogon - for grade three

OMNI 2 - China: Then and Now - for grade three

OMNI 3 - Pre-Columbian Latin America - for grade five

OMNI 4 - The Arts of Japan: A Window to a Culture - for grade nine

OMNI 5 - Native American Art - for grade seven

OMNI 6 - The Arts of Southeast Asia - for grade nine

OMNI 7 - The Arts of Tibet - for grades three, five, seven, and nine

*OMNI is supported by a generous gift from Dorothy and Thomas Litwin and by grants from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning; the National Endowment for the Arts; the McDonald Foundation; and Target Stores.

For fee schedule and more information about this or any of the Museum's School and Family Programs, please contact the coordinator at (607) 254-4654.