The Education Resource Center (ERC) at the Ella Sharp Museum of Art & History is open to educators looking for new materials and connections in the visual arts and local history.

Currently on the ERC menu are the following school-age programs:

• Arts Goes to School
• Pioneer Living
• Early Childhood Education Tours
• Early Michigan Festival Days
• Jackson's Underground Railroad
• "Meet the Artist" Resource Kits

Arts Goes to School reaches kindergarten through 6th grade students in the classroom via a trained Museum volunteer-a great way to get involved in your child's school. AGTS volunteers make six visits over the course of the year bringing art concepts and prints and using the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) technique. Materials are geared specifically for each grade level.

Pioneer Living has educated and delighted 2nd and 3rd grade classes with a full day's field trip since 1975. Students spend their day churning butter, taking lessons (and recess!) at the Dibble One-Room Schoolhouse, and try their hands at bartering, weaving, or woodworking. Our historic structures help set the mood for this very lively day.

Early Childhood Education Tours give special attention to preschool through 2nd grade students during the spring and holiday seasons. Our little visitors learn about the Museum, visit the galleries or a historic structure (like Ella's Hillside Farmhouse), hear a story, and create an art piece to take home. Projects and themes are selected to coordinate with current exhibits or historic structures.

Early Michigan Festival Days take place each year in May for Kindergarten through 6th grade students who step back in time for a two hour visit to the past. Children participate in activities and games illustrating features of pioneer life. Over the course of the visit, students get to visit a wide selection of historic structures, as well as take lessons in the one-room schoolhouse, and do some bartering in the old country store.

Jackson's Underground Railroad is a History Goes to School Program for 2nd through 5th grade. Early elementary classes and homeschoolers will learn how escaping slaves used clues in a folk song and a secret code of quilt patterns to direct them on the Underground Railroad. (February)

Meet the Artists Resource kits are designed to provide students with exciting educational explorations of different people and cultures. The kits are equipped with biographical and research information, various reproductions when appropriate, artifacts, and sculpture as well as other materials. The master artist series includes: Romare Bearden, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keefe, African American Artists, Leonardo daVinci, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo, Vincent VanGogh, Jackson Pollock, Michelangelo, Edgar Degas, and Henri Matisse.