333 E River Road
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States
Additional Details
The Weisman Art Museum invites K–12 educators to a hands-on professional development workshop exploring practical ways to integrate the arts across subject areas. Led by teaching artists Pam Reyes and Erica Warren, this interactive session introduces accessible, arts-based strategies that can be adapted to any classroom. Participants will engage in hands-on art making, in-gallery learning, object-based learning, practicing facilitation methods, and gain practical methods for reframing lessons across disciplines through an arts-enhanced lens. Whether you are a classroom educator in math, science, language arts, or social studies, or work with youth in community settings, you’ll leave with adaptable tools to foster creativity, engagement, and inclusive learning environments.
Incorporating themes from Journey to the Cosmic Womb by JooYoung Choi, this workshop provides educators with a variety of practical tools that can be adapted to their everyday teaching practice. This workshop equips educators with practical, accessible strategies for using creativity and art as tools for students to communicate their understanding of standards and learning goals in multiple ways.
Participants will begin with art-making, creating crankie theater boxes with Erica Warren from 1 - 2:30PM, and then shift into creative arts enhancement strategies with Pam Reyes from 2:45 - 3:45PM.
In the crankie building workshop from 1 - 2:30PM, Erica Warren will teach you how to create your very own crankie puppet xox. What is a crankie? A crankie is one long scrolled paper between two dowels—your cranks—inside a box-like frame. It is a useful form of visual expression and one that can be used over and over again. Materials are provided. Just bring yourself and an idea!
From 2:45 - 3:45, Pam Reyes will introduce practical strategies for integrating arts-enhanced learning across curricula and in interdisciplinary classrooms, to provide arts-based learning to students along with subject-area concepts across the disciplines–especially useful amidst decreased arts budgets in schools.
Support for this program is provided by Art Bridges. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through an Operating Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Additional general operating support is generously provided by Ameriprise Financial.
Erica E. Warren (she/her), local to Minneapolis, is a Black and CHamoru graphic artist, illustrator and puppeteer. Predominantly a shadow puppeteer, Erica explores her storytelling arts through rod and table top puppetry, often reflecting on characters of mixed race by incorporating bittersweet elements of real life and fantasy.
Pam Reyes is a teaching artist and musician who has taught in museums, schools, and community settings for over 10 years. Pam received her Masters in Art Education at The University of Texas at Austin in 2024. Her process and inquiry-based teaching philosophies are bolstered by her early teaching experiences in New York City arts institutions like The Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, and New Museum where she facilitated free, public art experiences for thousands of intergenerational participants over 7 years. A recent Minneapolis transplant, Pam feels inspired and mobilized by the strong communities of artist activists that she has encountered in her new city of residence. During her workshops, Pam encourages participants to deepen their sense of belonging and connection to place, transform everyday materials into objects that hold meaning, and explore materials with curiosity and care.
Art Bridges
Minnesota State Arts Board Legacy Grant logos
Ameriprise Financial
