The NC Kids' Exploration Journals are a fun educational tool to help youth explore their communities and natural surroundings! Each journal contains: 18 multidisciplinary activities with guided prompts, 6 lined journal pages for recording observations and reflections, and 4 blank pages for individual creativity.

The digital versions of the journal are designed to be printed out for students either as individual activities or in its entirety so that they can explore their school yard, local park, or own backyard. Though designed for 1st - 5th-graders, older audiences may enjoy them too! They are also available in both English and Spanish languages.

While supplies last, hard copies of the journals are currently available for free to teachers by contacting karen.ipock@ncdcr.gov.

In this special 360 interactive tour, students can learn about the science used in an art museum by exploring the NC Museum of Art's conservation lab!

This lesson will focus on using found & recycled objects to create a three-dimensional narrative landscape. Essential Question: How can we re-create a place we have seen?

Students will delve into Hans Thoma’s Wondrous Birds to discover an aerial perspective and learn to see more deeply. Using dance, English language arts, science, theatre arts, visual arts, and poetry, they will explore landforms and bodies of water from a bird’s-eye view.

In this lesson students practice gratitude and mindful meditation inspired by Auguste Rodin’s Cathedral. Essential Question: How can art inspire gratitude?

Students will examine the role of perception in interpretation of primary sources in Ralph Earl’s portrait of Andrew Jackson. In small groups, students will research periods in Jackson’s life and use gathered information to create their own portraits of Jackson that communicate facts about actual events filtered through the point of view of someone affected by Jackson.

Students will examine the three historical portraits Andrew Jackson, William Pitt, and Portrait of a Boy for symbolism and its relationship to the concept of meaning. After learning more about Andrew Jackson’s involvement in the Cherokee Indians’ Trail of Tears in North Carolina, students will research another historical figure important during that movement and produce a historical portrait, similar to the examples shown, and a cinquain poem.

Students explore the topics of interpretation and intertextuality by investigating and creating texts and works of art inspired by other texts. Essential Question: How does meaning change through interpretation?

Students will ask and record questions as they reflect upon the work of art. They will develop understanding of metacognition while considering questions and themes. ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How does asking questions lead to deeper thinking?

By researching field guides and the work of John James Audubon, students will research an assigned bird. Students will create a story about the bird using the Elements of Story, and create their own bird track print from a collagraph stamp they create. Students will then create a triptych to accompany the research and the story with three panels: 1 - wide view with oil pastel, 2 - close-up view using scratchboard, 3 - track view only using monoprint track students created. Students will assemble the work into a display for exhibit. Essential Question Asked: How can we explore characteristics of animals through research, using storytelling, illustration, and printmaking?

In this multi-day lesson, students will study the function and use of Tji Wara crest masks of the Bamana people of Africa. Using the masks as an example, students will develop a cultural study of their personal talents to create their own crest masks. Students will then choreograph a dance to go with their mask. Essential questions asked:
What are Bamana Tji Wara crest masks? In creating a crest mask of my own, how can I show what I am good at? How do I make choices to include in my choreography?

Students will improve visualization skills through role play, texture identification, and creating an original work of art depicting their own families. They will also discuss connections between the painting and their own lives.

This lesson will focus on how to sculpt a functional object in clay. By sculpting a cup, students will learn routines for working with clay and strategies to create a successful sculpted object. They will also learn that people long ago in Guatemala used similar cups to drink hot chocolate. Essential question asked:
How can we use clay to create a usable object?

In this two-part assignment, students will consider personal reflection and change as they create a two-sided collaged self-portrait that will be cut and folded into a Boustrophedon book form, also known as "snake book form." Inspired by Portrait of Emy, by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, both portraits (focusing on the recent past and the future) will include text, color, and shape abstraction. After the collages are finished, the book is folded, and cut into a spiral “snake form” effectively merging the artist’s past, current, and future identities into one textured, sculptural form.