Education
Explore your creativity with us! The Museum offers year-round opportunities for different ages and all levels of experience. Learn new skills, techniques, and styles, and spend time in the Museum galleries and gardens to inspire your own artwork. Looking for a creative outlet for the kids, wanting to refine your skills, or seeking opportunities to explore together? You’ll find it here at the Cummer Museum.
Want to schedule a tour? Please visit our Tours page for information on School Tours, Teacher Resources, Adult Tours and other group offerings.
CLASSES
Art Classes at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens allow children, families, teens, and adults to explore their creative side while learning new skills, techniques, and styles. Students spend time in the Museum galleries and gardens to observe and study works of art and then take that inspiration back to the studio to create their own artwork. Each class is led by a local teaching artist.
ART CONNECTIONS
Art Connections, a nationally-recognized education center, enhances the cultural learning of visitors of all ages. Following a COVID-friendly refresh to minimize touchpoints and provide a more socially-distant space, Art Connectionshas reopened to provide opportunities for close-looking and artful thinking – skills and practices that visitors can take with them throughout the galleries and gardens and use to make deeper, more meaningful connections to the artworks.
Support for Art Connections generously provided by J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver.
Support for the Music Room in Art Connections provided by the DuBow Family Foundation.
EDUCATOR RESOURCES
Museum, as well as pre- and post-visit activities, to use in your classroom:
Pre-Kindergarten: My Outdoor World
Kindergarten and Grade 1: The Art of Portraiture
Grades 2 and 3: Elements of Art
Grade 4 through Grade 12: Celebrating Black Artists
Self-Guided Visits, General Art History Tour, and Museum Highlight Tour
Beaches Rotaract Read Alouds at Cummer Museum
READ USA partnered with the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens and the Rotaract Club of Jacksonville's Beaches to create a unique new series of Read Alouds. The 10-video series provides children with a variety of stories that reflect different cultures and ethnicities while exposing them to unique artistic and cultural resources available at the Cummer Museum. Ten members of the Beaches Rotaract conducted the Read Alouds inside the Cummer Museum and in the gardens and discuss works of art that inspired them and are related to each of the stories the members read.
EXPLORING WITH KIDS
The Museum's "Exploring with Kids" guides are designed to help children and families slow down, enjoy and interact with art in meaningful ways. These guides are intended for families not just to use while visiting at the Museum, but also to take home with them.
A special thank you goes to the Chartrand Family Fund who provided the funding for this informative and fun guide!
ART MAKING AT HOME
"Art Making at Home" provides ideas and instructions for creating Museum inspired art projects from home. Choose one of the projects in the guide and get the whole family involved! Helpful hint - visit our YouTube Channel for an at-home tutorial, as well as viturally explore parts of the Museum.
RESOURCE GUIDE
The Museum's "Resource Guide" is intended to be a starting point to online engagement. Looking for projects to create, livestream concerts to listen to, or curriculum based teaching tools? You'll find great suggestions here!
COLOR THE CUMMER MUSEUM
We invite you to #ColorTheCummerMuseum collection by downloading, coloring, and reimagining works of art found in the Museum. Share them with us on social media using the hashtag above and you could see your designs featured on the Cummer Museum's page.
ADAPTIVE ART RESOURCES
Arts for All
Invented by Dwayne Szot and initially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Cummer Museum is home to a range of Arts for All adaptive art-making equipment. These tools allow individuals with different levels of abilities to creatively express themselves through the visual arts. Rather than finding ways for people with disabilities to participate in activities for non-disabled people, Arts for All creates entirely new activities and projects for people with disabilities and invites those without disabilities to join in, resulting in a new and completely inclusive art form.
Tools and materials are available to area teacher and educators. To check out these items, email accessibility@cummermuseum.org or call 904.899.6002.
HEALing Arts
HEALing Arts is a partnership between the Cummer Museum and the HEAL Foundation. As a local nonprofit organization serving individuals and families living with Autism Spectrum Disorders, the HEAL Foundation makes it possible for students with autism to experience the Museum’s annual VSA Festival and Camp Cummer.
Educator/Parent Resources
VSA is an international organization that provides opportunities for children and adults with disabilities to tap into their creativity and realize the value of their own artistic abilities. This site provides lesson plans and best practices.
The website for the Florida Affiliate of VSA contains event and program information for Florida residents.
Florida Diagnostic and Learning Resource System is a support system for Exceptional Student Education professionals serving students in Clay, Duval, and Nassau Counties.
The National Arts and Disability Center (NADC) is dedicated to promoting full inclusion of children and adults with disabilities into the arts community. The site contains an artist directory, online gallery, resources, bibliographies, and conference information.
The Inclusive Design Research Centre provides information on web accessibility, distance learning, and universal design.
The HEAL Foundation Healing Every Autistic Life is a local foundation serving the greater Jacksonville area that supports programs and partnerships for individuals on the autism spectrum.
Art-Making Resources
Adaptive art-making tools and related products can be found at the following sites:
- The American Printing House for the Blind offers art history through touch and sound, created by Art Education for the Blind. This series combines tactile drawings, Braille text, and audio into art history texts.
- Able Data provides more than 24,000 adaptive products.
- Able Play rates play products for children with special needs.
- Dick Blick and Nasco sell adaptive art supplies and equipment.
- The Kennedy Center provides a full list of additional resources.
StoryWalk: The Book of Lost Magic
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens partnered with Jacksonville Arts & Music School during the 2021-2022 school year. JAMS’ visual art students of House Savage wrote, illustrated, and designed a StoryWalk set in the Museum Gardens. A StoryWalk(R) is a fun, educational activity that places a story along a popular walking route in your community.
This epic tale follows Mira, Kai, Kam, and Bash, four teenagers from different worlds who find themselves on a quest to locate a magical book. This interactive experience leads visitors through the Museum’s gardens using an educational visual guide that features bold student designed imagery.
Access the StoryWalk map here and visit the Cummer Gardens to begin your journey.
The Book of Lost Magic was written and illustrated by the students of House Savage, the visual arts department of Jacksonville Arts & Music School (JAMS). Please support the students and the Cummer Museum by purchasing a copy of The Book of Lost Magic in the Cummer Shop today!
COMMUNITY IMPACT
Cummer in the Classroom and the Weaver Academy of Art
Cummer in the Classroom and the Weaver Academy of Art are two comprehensive art education programs at the Cummer Museum that serve more than 2,500 children (pre-kindergarten through fifth grades) and nearly 150 teachers in six Title 1 schools, of which an average of 90 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch. Learn More
Women of Vision
The Women of Vision program is a unique initiative that brings the visual and literary arts to adult women who are blind and/or low-vision. Learn More
Arts For All Festival
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens is home to the Jacksonville partner of Arts4All Florida, an statewide organization that provides opportunities in the arts for individuals with disabilities. The annual Arts for All Festival (formerly VSA Festival), which takes place in the spring of each year, invites Jacksonville-area students with disabilities to visit the Cummer Museum for a chance to experience art through all of their senses. Learn More