(In Person) School Programming

Self-Guided

Self-Guided Field Trips

PreK–12

Teachers are invited to visit the MFA with their class for a self-directed experience. Classes engage with artwork in the galleries at their own pace to extend their classroom learning in this unique setting.

Guided 

Guided Field Trips K–12

NOTE: Guided field trips are now sold out for the 2023–24 school year. Self-guided field trips are still available through June 2024.

Join us for a guided visit facilitated by trained volunteer School Group Guides who foster discussion among small groups of up to 12 students using 5–8 works of art across several collections.

Option 1: Community and Identity Tour

Engage your students in a guided tour about Community and Identity. Students delve into what art reveals about the beliefs and practices of communities and individuals across time and cultures using art as a primary source. Touching on multiple collections, students examine the choices different artists and cultures make to represent their identities and stories through art. In this multimodal, learner-centered approach, students practice looking through inquiry, making connections, and thinking critically, as they bring their experiences, thoughts, and ideas to the foreground through meaningful discussion.

Option 2: Art of Ancient Egypt Tour

Starting in spring 2024, engage in a participatory tour of the Art of Ancient Egypt collection. Students use objects as primary sources for close-looking to grow in their understanding of the beliefs, values, and everyday lives of Ancient Egyptian peoples. Students reflect critically on questions of provenance and how we work to understand these objects outside of their original context. The tour is centered on the ancient Egypt galleries and also includes objects from ancient and modern civilizations outside ancient Egypt to help students build connections and further their understanding.

MFA Distance Learning Programs 

Live Interactive Videoconference for Individual Classrooms

To book a program, complete our online request form. FREE FOR BPS

Art of the American Revolution – Grade 5

Students delve into the art of colonial Boston by looking at objects made during this pivotal time in American history and learning how these historic artworks tell multiple stories about race, identity, and power during the time of the American Revolution.

Art of Ancient Egypt – Grade 6

Dig into the beliefs, values, and everyday lives of ancient Egyptians by looking closely at artworks in the MFA’s galleries. Students learn about the Museum’s early 20th century excavations in Egypt, reflect on questions of how these objects came to be part of the collection, and gain a deeper understanding of how to view and interpret ancient objects displayed outside their original context.

Art of Ancient Greece – Grade 7

Examine ancient art depicting activities of work and play to see what these objects reveal about daily life in ancient Greece. Students look closely and make inferences about the everyday activities these artworks portray—many of which are still familiar today.

African American Art – Grades 6–12

By looking at American art from the 20th and 21st centuries, students learn how three Boston-connected African American artists—Allan Rohan Crite, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Stephen Hamilton—traced their roots to Africa as a way to reclaim their ancestral legacies and elevate African arts, traditions, and histories.

Guided Tours across Collections

• Discovering the MFA

• Explorations for Early Learners: Discovering the MFA for K–2 Visitors

• Art of the Spanish-Speaking World

Guided Tours of Art of the Americas

• Highlights of the Art of the Americasa

• American Art in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

• Early Americas: Art from the Ancient Americas, Colonial America, and the New Nation

• Colonists and Revolution in Massachusetts

Guided Tours of Art of the Ancient World

• Exploring the Ancient World

• Art of Ancient Egypt

Guided Tours of Art of Asia

• Highlights of the Art of Asia

• Art of the Silk Road

Guided Tours of the Art of Europe

• Small Kingdoms to Emerging Nations: Art of Europe from 1100 to 1700

• The Enlightenment to Modernism: The Art of Europe from 1700 to the mid 1900s

• Three Centuries of French Art: Classicism to Cubism