Close Encounters
Close Encounters is a free six-session program for fourth graders in Baltimore City Public Schools. Students explore three themes—Portraits & Personalities, Stories in Art, and Moods & Feelings—through guided tours and creative response activities. After each tour, students participate in facilitated virtual Make & Share sessions designed to reinforce ideas explored during the tour while promoting social and emotional learning. Through close observation of art, discussion, writing, and making, students strengthen their curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, and self-reflection.
Tour entirely from your classroom! Three thematic tours and three Make & Share sessions are virtual, or you may choose a hybrid program of three in-person Museum tours and three virtual Make & Share sessions. Busing to and from school is free of charge.
Begun in 1982, Close Encounters supports Baltimore City Public Schools’ fourth-grade visual art curriculum.
Learn more about the Close Encounters tour program
Close Encounters is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Maryland State Department of Education, Wilmington Trust, The Goldsmith Family Foundation, and The Howard C. and Marguerite E. Muller Charitable Foundation.
