Education

To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist:

Jackie Greenbank
+64-3-9417386
schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz

We run education programmes for schools. Let us help your class discover art with hands on learning experiences based on our exhibitions and works in our collection.

Our education programmes offer students first-hand experience with real works of art whilst developing their creative and critical thinking skills. We make links across the New Zealand curriculum as well as provide students with great opportunities to develop key competencies in a social context. Discussions and activities can be adapted to suit all levels.

Gallery tours and visits are free.

Lessons take 90 – 120 minutes, involve a hands-on activity and cost $2 per student.
Bookings are essential. Our programmes are popular and we can only teach one class at a time. So get in early.

To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist, Jackie Greenbank:
+64-3-9417386

schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Installation view of Povi Christkeke by Michel Tuffery 1999

PROGRAMME

Select a programme for more information on our art lessons.

All year
All Levels
Activities and Resources
+ Description

Lesson time: as long as you like!

Class Limit: any students

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

Art Gallery Explorer Cards
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!

Geoff Dixon Blue globe / Big ark 1998. Mixed media. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy the artist

Geoff Dixon Blue globe / Big ark 1998. Mixed media. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy the artist

All Levels
Self-guided Tours
+ Description

Lesson time: as long as you like!

Class Limit: any students

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 a wonderful resources for the Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania exhibition 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. 

All Levels
Guided Tours
+ Description

Lesson time: 30-60 minutes

Class Limit: 25 students

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.

Download PDF
Students on a guided tour of the Gallery

Students on a guided tour of the Gallery

Year 3 and up
Shape Up
+ Description

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students

Take a guided tour of selected works in Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection and examine how artists use colour, space, form and pattern to activate the eye. During the tour students will make recordings to use in the Education Centre where they will create an abstract work of art to take back to school.

 

Julia Morison Tootoo 2006. Mixed media on aluminium laminate. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, gift of the artist, 2008

Julia Morison Tootoo 2006. Mixed media on aluminium laminate. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, gift of the artist, 2008

Years 0 – 6
Junior Map Makers
+ Description

Lesson time: 90 Minutes

Class Limit: 36 students

Explore the Gallery with your students, discuss a range of artists’ work and explore ideas of navigation, belonging, identity and how we are connected across time and place. During the guided tour students will use signs and symbols to create a pictorial map of their own identity and journey through the Gallery which they will then complete using watercolour and pastel in our Education Centre. A great lesson for preschoolers and junior primary students!

Maungarongo Te Kawa Rangi Takere Hau 2022. Mixed media quilt. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2022

Maungarongo Te Kawa Rangi Takere Hau 2022. Mixed media quilt. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2022

Term 3 and 4
All Levels
Maureen Lander: Aho Marama Strings of Light
+ Description

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

Come and experience Maureen Lander’s magical UV light installation in Perilous with your class. Students will discuss how Lander has brought together different art forms and histories, from Māori string games to conceptual art before heading back to the classroom to create their own sculptural string  performance using IMovie and a green screen.

Available from 12 August

Maureen Lander Wai o te Marama 2004, Harakeke, muka, nylon line, fluorescent paint, UV lighting. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021. Photo: Ellie Smith

Maureen Lander Wai o te Marama 2004, Harakeke, muka, nylon line, fluorescent paint, UV lighting. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021. Photo: Ellie Smith

All Levels
Robin White: Te Whanaketanga Something is Happening Here
+ Description
  • Understanding art in context
  • Communicating and interpreting
  • Developing ideas
  • Developing practical knowledge
  • Key Competencies
  • New Zealand histories
  • Participating and contributing
  • Thinking
  • Managing self
  • Symbols and text
  • Relating to others
  • Using language

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

The students be taken on a tour of Robin White’s portrait artworks along with contemporary Ōtautahi photographer Margaret Dawson. Explore their emotional depth, social relevance, visual power  of self portraits. Back in the education centre we will create our own self portrait channelling these wāhine toa.

Exhibition developed by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and toured by Te Papa.

Available 22 July - 5 November

Robin White Mere and Siulolovao, Otago Peninsula 1978. Screenprint. Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2004

Robin White Mere and Siulolovao, Otago Peninsula 1978. Screenprint. Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2004

Term 4 and 1
All Levels
Soft Sculpture
+ Description
  • Key Competencies
  • New Zealand histories

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

Explore personal and collective histories, relationships to the environment, transitions between places and across time through textiles and moving image. Learn about the use of soft materials in sculptural practice, and the rise of textile art in history. The students will investigate and traverse through a pile of recycled materials to make a 3 dimensional sculpture of their own to take back to class.

Ilish Thomas Indira’s Birthday (ઇિન્દરાનો જન્મિદવસ) (still) 2022. Single-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist

Ilish Thomas Indira’s Birthday (ઇિન્દરાનો જન્મિદવસ) (still) 2022. Single-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist

All Levels
What is Painting?!!
+ Description
  • Understanding art in context
  • Communicating and interpreting
  • Developing ideas
  • Developing practical knowledge
  • Key Competencies
  • New Zealand histories
  • Participating and contributing
  • Thinking
  • Managing self
  • Symbols and text
  • Relating to others
  • Using language

Lesson time: 90

Class Limit: 36 students

Explore connections between our histories and future, creating new languages and ways of seeing, and uncovering the unexpected through recycling, reusing, and rewriting. The students will take a walk through Perlious to discover these paintings can be made up of layers of stories and of materials alike. We will then take these ideas back into the classroom to make their own collage to take away.

Miranda Parkes Etc (Exploded book: French Painting) 2020 Gold and Silver foil, collage elements, acrylic, varnish onphotogravure book plate.Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021

Miranda Parkes Etc (Exploded book: French Painting) 2020 Gold and Silver foil, collage elements, acrylic, varnish onphotogravure book plate.Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021

Education partner