Pre-Visit Activities

  • Encourage your students to explore the Museum’s on-line learning sites, The Fox Chase: A Race Into History and In Situ: The Painted Panels to generate excitement, enthusiasm, before the field trip.

  • Have your students play the Don't Be Out Foxed! activitity in the Museum’s on-line learning siteThe Fox Chase: A Race Into History. There are 10 fox icons hidden throughout the site. Each time they click on one, a special message comes up and tallies their count. Find all 10 to see the surprise. A fun way to search the site before a field trip.

  • Have your students play the Find the Hidden Panel activity in the Museum's on-line learning site In Situ: The Painted Panels. There are 10 images of Chadwick's panel hidden throughout the site. Each time they click on one, a special message comes up and tallies their count. Find all 10 to see the hidden panel. A fun way to search the site before the field trip.

  • Use the Museum’s Teaching Poster Florence Griswold House: The Boardinghouse for the Lyme Art Colony with original illustrations by David Macaulay. The back of the poster has several activities linked to the images on the poster. Contact Mollie Clarke at (860) 434-5542, ext. 113 or mollie@flogris.org to get your free copy of the Teaching Poster.

  • Read The Story of Miss Florence and the Lyme Art Colony aloud to your students and ask them what questions they might want to ask during their visit. A copy of is available in the Educators’ Toolbox section of the Resources for Educators.

  • Have your students illustrate one of the big ideas in The Story of Miss Florence and the Lyme Art Colony. Combine the images for a classroom book or hang a gallery of drawings in the classroom.

  • Play the wiggle game, the drawing game that was popular with the artists of the Lyme Art Colony. See the Wiggles & Giggles lesson plan in the Lesson Plan section of the Resources for Educators and visit the wiggle drawing gallery in the Educators’ Toolbox section of the Resources for Educators.

  • View the Museum’s introductory video, A Certain Light, with your students. Although geared for a general audience, this twelve minute DVD tells the story Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme.  Contact Mollie Clarke at (860) 434-5542, ext. 113 or mollie@flogris.org to get your loan copy.

  • Make a Great Expectations! Chart to learn what the students think they will experience during their visit to the Florence Griswold Museum. Use this website to enhance their expectations.

  • Find Old Lyme on a map of Connecticut. Imagine aloud what the area might look like during the season of your visit.

  • Explore the various learning portfolios in the Educators’ Toolbox in the Resources for Educators section.  Have the students describe what they see and make a list of questions about the objects and images.

  • Ask students to write down questions they may have and bring them along so they can ask a Museum Educator.

  • Fill your classroom with books about American Impressionism, French Impressionism, Artist Colonies, Connecticut Artists. Use the bibliography section of the Resources for Educators to see a list of books.

  • Listen to music that was popular in 1910.

  • Have the students “adopt” one of the artists in The Fox Chase and become the expert on that person. Have them share information by completing the sentence, “The most interesting thing about [insert name of artist, for example “Childe Hassam”]  is that he/she...” Encourage the students to be on the look out for art by their artist during their visit.

  • Divide the class into small research groups to develop student roles as “specialists” on a certain topic. Use this website as the starting point for your research.  Some suggested topics are:
    1. The Lyme Art Colony
    2. American Impressionism
    3. Boardinghouses in America
    4. Tonalism
    5. Painting En Plein Air
    6. Who was Miss Florence?

  • Brainstorm about ways to behave when visiting a museum. A list of museum manners is available in the Educators’ Toolbox section of the Resources for Educators.  Discuss why each rule is important.