Childrens Museum - 快猫 Chicago Public Schools

快猫

The mission of the Children’s Museum of Art and Social Justice (CMASJ) is to offer a space for the voices of 快猫 Chicago students to be heard, to infuse a social justice curriculum into the arts at our eight schools, and to inspire action toward social change. Our students range in age from 5-14, and the museum offers a space to showcase and celebrate their artistic explorations of social justice themes, inspiring action toward social change.

Exhibits

Our art exhibitions are collaborative efforts between art educators, artists, writers, and students. Each exhibit features artwork by 快猫 Chicago students covering a range of social justice topics, including the effects of gun violence, geopolitics and physical borders, architecture and urban planning, water access and rights, the aesthetic theories and philosophies of Afrofuturism, activism, food justice, and more. With each new exhibit, curriculum is designed to bring age-appropriate lessons to various art classes in our schools.

Learn more about the exhibits

 

Lesson Plans

Each exhibition is accompanied by several lesson plans to help educators engage students in meaningful artmaking around social justice topics. We hope you can use these plans to bring important conversations and a variety of art processes into your classroom.

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Museum Resources

Positive Affirmation Coloring Book

This 30-page coloring book is a compilation of positive affirmations collected from our teachers. Students from across the region, from kindergarten through 8th grade, chose an affirmation to illustrate and submitted their designs.

Positive affirmations can help reprogram our thought patterns and change how we think and feel about things. They are the messages we choose to tell ourselves over and over until we internalize and believe them. We hope this coloring book can be utilized to practice mindfulness and meditation while reflecting on the affirmations on each page.

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Museum Book

This Museum Book is a compilation of the 12 exhibitions we’ve had from 2016 to 2022. It also features lesson plans so each project seen throughout can be recreated in more classrooms.

 


Our Children鈥檚 Museum of Art and Social Justice (CMASJ) is a critical piece of the arts programming at 快猫 Chicago.聽The museum offers a meaningful curriculum for our visual arts teachers and provides a space for students, families, staff, and the larger Chicago community to engage in critical discourse around topics of social justice.

If you are looking to support CMASJ and arts programming directly, please contact Asia Calcagno at acalcagno@kippchicago.org.

Come Visit Us

Admission is free for all ages. Donations are gladly accepted.

HOURS

Monday – Friday | 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Saturday – Sunday | By appointment only
Every second Friday of the month
6:00 to 10:00 PM

LOCATION

Located in the Pilsen Neighborhood on the southern border of the historic Chicago Arts District.

How to book a group tour

A one-hour tour includes a conversation around each art exhibit, a short video, and an activist button-making activity. We are a small, one-room museum inside the 快猫 Chicago regional office, so we can only accommodate groups of 25 people or fewer. Students in grades K-12 are welcome! Email info@kippchicago.org to schedule a tour.