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Looking for things to do at home or school? Take a look at these worksheets and activities.

Pacific Printmaking
He Waka Eke Noa
Waka Huia

Explore our set of colouring activities based on works from our collection - check them out here. 

Have a go at curating your own exhibition with the works in our collection using My Gallery 

We would love to see your work when it's done - take a photo and send it to schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz or tag us on social media!

Our lessons often book up fast but you are always welcome to bring your students on a self-guided tour of the Gallery. We have some wonderful resources for the Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania and Ralph Hotere: Ātete (to resist) exhibitions which you can use to guide your students through the spaces. Check out all of our current exhibitions here. 

Please ensure you go over the Gallery Guidelines with your students so that they are aware of expectations in the Gallery spaces.

Email schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz and let us know when to expect you. so we are able manage any clashes with events and other tours. 

Students will take away an appreciation of art and consider a selection works that can cover a range of subjects, styles, media and purposes. The works viewed will be a selection from our current exhibitions. Students are expected to discuss and question what they see. Tours can be tailored to all levels.

Bookings essential.

Download our Gallery Guidelines below.

Take a self-guided tour of our exhibition Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania. Student workbooks are available to support students while they explore the spaces - download a copy below or email schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz to organise a printed class set.

All About Te Wheke

Wheke means octopus in te reo Māori. For many cultures around Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa / the Pacific Ocean, this resourceful, resilient, adventurous creature is a symbol of early voyages of exploration and migration from the Polynesian homelands of Hawaiki. Its long tentacles stretch out across the ocean to Tonga, Kiribati, Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Aotearoa New Zealand. In this selection of art from the Gallery collection and beyond, Te Wheke offers a way to understand how we are connected across time and place.

In Aotearoa, conventional art history tells the stories of art that ties us to Britain and Europe. The art in Te Wheke looks in a different direction – from the Pacific outwards. Artists reach back to Polynesia and out into the world beyond, finding connections that are old and new.

Oceania is large and glorious. Like the octopus, it connects us along Pacific pathways with ideas of navigation, belonging and identity. Te Wheke opens up conversations about the journeys, tensions and connections that shape our past, present and future.

Available until 5 June

The story of Māori weaving is one of great skill, determination and survival. When colonisation threatened Māori culture and society, the women continued to weave. Against overwhelming odds, Māori upheld the mana and traditions of raranga, passing down their skills and knowledge—the eternal thread—ensuring that this vital practice thrives in our contemporary world. Te Puna Waiora celebrates the great mana of the senior Māori weavers of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the complexity and beauty of their work. Your class will take a guided tour of the exhibition and discuss selected works
before practising their own weaving skills in our Education Centre.

Available 31 January – 3 April

Take a tour with your class through the Gallery spaces and discover drawings and prints from our collection. During the tour students will learn about different printmaking techniques and make recordings which explore composition, line and mark-making. In the Education Centre students will use their recordings to create a dry point etching and print their work on a card to take home.

Available 31 January – 14 April

This major exhibition presents a close study of Joanna Margaret Paul’s career from the 1970s to the 2000s. Moving across the different phases of Paul’s life as an artist, the exhibition traces key journeys that shaped her career: from Ōtepoti Dunedin to Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula, Whanganui and beyond. Your class will take a guided tour of the exhibition and discuss selected works before practising painting techniques by creating their own still-life painting in our Education Centre. 

Available 31 January – 13 March

Pushing a stone up a hill alone is no fun. Francis Upritchard’s arresting new sculptures, pottery and paintings – made with help from collaborators across Aotearoa – recall the solitary punishment of Sisyphus, but instead endorse the power of collaboration to meet even the most daunting challenges. Your class will take a guided tour of the space before heading to our Education Centre to create a sculpture of their own!

Available 2 April – 24 July

Students will tour the Gallery and explore a range of Polynesian artforms including woodblock, Tivaevae and Tapa. During the tour they will make recordings of patterns and motifs used in the work they see. They will use their drawings to create their own Polynesian print. Students will be working individually and in groups during this lesson.

Available until 5 June

Your class will compare how artists have portrayed the land through a selection of landscape paintings on display in the Gallery. During the tour, students will consider why each location was chosen, how each work has been composed and explore how artists use light, colour and mark-making in their work. In the Education Centre, students will create their own layered watercolour painting of a local landscape to take back to school. 

Available 31 January – 5 June

Take a guided tour of our exhibition Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania. Students will discuss a range of artists' work and explore ideas of navigation, belonging, identity and how we are connected across time and place. Students will then use a range of materials to create a pictorial map of their journey through the Gallery using collage, colour and pattern.

Available until 5 June

Share a moment of magic and possibility with your class under the rustling, glittering golden leaves of Reuben Paterson’s life-sized hand-sculpted tree. In Māori cosmology, it was Tāne, the forest god, who pushed apart his earth mother Papatūānuku and sky father Ranginui to create Te Ao Mārama – room and light for people. In the classroom students will sculpt their own (biodegradable) glitter masterpiece to take home.

Available 30 October - 30 January