The interactive adventure begins in a 16th century French parlor with a cryptic note explaining details to escape the mansion. Clicking on different areas of the image reveal verbal clues at the bottom of the screen and open doorways to gain entry into the next room.  Your students will enjoy the challenge escaping the labyrinth of rooms using the clues found along the way.

Escape from Thorne Mansion could be easily integrated with a study of linear perspective, composition, or design.  Alternatively, create a literature connection at school or at home incorporating the book, The Sixty-eight Rooms reviewed in an earlier post.

Connecting with Music
Other than the light strum of a harp in the French Anteroom, the Escape from Thorne Mansion interactive missed an opportunity to couple era music with the room design. So, I’ve decided to pick up where the Art Institute of Chicago has left off and pair a few Thorne Room images with sounds from the time (click the widget to the right of the image to listen).

California Hallway, c. 1940

French Boudoir of the Louis XV Period, 1740-60

Japanese Traditional Interior, 1937

The Thorne Miniature Rooms create an amazing opportunity to connect history, literature, and music with art and design.  How else do the Thorne Miniature Rooms connect to your curriculum?

The following is a guest post written by

Good Things Come in Small Packages. It is such fun to come across a book that our elementary-aged students can read that have ideas for visual arts lessons built right into the story. The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone does just that. It is a fantasy tale, perfect for 2nd-6th graders, about the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In our story, Jack and Ruthie go on a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago and see the Thorne Rooms for the first time.  Jack discovers a key while on a separate special tour with one of the museum guards. The key leads Jack and Ruthie to discovering much more about the sixty-eight rooms! These exquisite rooms, whose design represents the style of a different era and place, were commissioned by Narcissa Niblack Thorne.  The artists and master craftsmen created each using only the finest materials. They were built using 1 inch to 1 foot scale. Even the doorknobs turn, and the desk drawers open, truly representing design in miniature. Our characters discover that the key is really a magic key, which transforms the person holding it into a miniature version of him or herself. We live vicariously as they walk into these rooms and step back in time to pre-revolutionary France, or to late seventeenth century America. By connecting with artworks mentioned in the story including Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, we can demonstrate the link between history and art. In this case, Jack and Ruthie realize that they landed in France prior to its revolution, that had been partially inspired by the American’s fight for freedom from British rule.

Kupjack Georgian Dining Room

18th Century Violin Makers Shop

Not all of us can travel to the Art Institute of Chicago to visit this wonderful collection. However there are other museums around the country that also have a connection to Thorne’s incredible legacy. The Knoxville Museum of Art, in Knoxville, TN, holds a collection of Thorne Rooms. These represent some of the earliest of her works. The Mini-Time Machine Museum of Miniatures in Tucson, AZ is a museum dedicated to miniatures. In its fantastic collection, one can find the Kupjack Georgian Dining Room, an example of work by one of Thorne’s primary artists, Eugene Kupjack. The Phoenix Art Museum also holds 20 examples of the Thorne Rooms.

Make curricular connections:

Drawing & Math
Connect this wonderful fantasy to the creativity of our students by asking them to design their own “Contemporary Interior” where they design a room, using 1 inch to 1 foot scale, representing their place and time. Either using one-point perspective in drawing, or photomontage from magazines, the design of their own space would be a fascinating view of our 21st Century world from a child’s point of view.

Sculptural Paper Folding & Math
Jack and Ruthie, our adventurous 6th grade characters, go to school together in a Chicago neighborhood. In the opening chapter, Jack shows a bento box that he brought for lunch to school. Ruthie had never seen anything like it, and your students may not have either! Integrate a wonderful paper folding lesson, that implements measurement and folding for creating the bento box, and using paper folding and sculpture for the food.  There is a wonderful example in the Thorne Rooms collection of Japanese architecture and design known as the Japanese Traditional Interior that would connect wonderfully with this lesson.

The Sixty-Eight Rooms is a wonderful addition to any book or art club looking to connect literature with art. The magical tale would be a great read-aloud in the art classroom, leading to specific art projects that make children think about their enviroments and design.

Special Thanks to the Mini-Time Machine Museum of Miniatures in Tucson, AZ for permission to publish the photographs of works in their collection, both taken by Balfour Walker. The museum can be found on Twitter at @tucsonmuseum Thanks to Nancy Walker for sharing her Bento Box lesson as well. Photos of teacher samples are from the Center for Educator Development in Fine Arts Summit XI Elementary Sessions hosted by Samantha Melvin and Nancy Walkup.

Possible Discussion Questions:
1. What did you learn about visiting a museum that you didn’t know before?
2. Why might each artwork have different meanings to different people?
3. What type of art do you like best? Why?

We were excited to view The Art Institute of Chicago’s new Modern Wing at the educator open house. The new edition designed by Renzo Piano makes the Art Institute of Chicago the second largest art museum in the United States. The layout and design of the new galleries that now house the museums 20th and 21st century art collections are impressive but, as educators we were truly amazed by the new Ryan Education Center.

The new eduction space boasts five classrooms, three huge studios, the new Crown Family Education Center and the new David and Marilyn Fatt Vitale Family Orientation Room. Not only are these educational spaces truly state of the art but, have one of the most sought after views in the city as they look onto Millennium Park. The image above was taken on my phone in one of the new studios.

Along with the fantastic educational space , The Art Institute previewed new interactive software and resources featuring pieces from their collections.  This July they lunched that material online in an interactive website for kids called the Curious Corner. The site is geared more towards the elementary age child but, also has resources for educators and parents. Visitors can choose form three different categories of interactive games such as Story Time, Match Up and Play with Art. The Match up section is one of our favorites it lets you match texture, shape or sound. Below is a short clip of some of the interactive games children can explore on the site.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

Below is a couple of ideas for utilizing the Curious Corner in the classroom.

• Use the “Story Time” games as an introduction to teaching children about the messages, stories and meaning behind many pieces of art.
• Use the “Match Up” sound game as an individual activity for analyzing the parts of a work of art. As a student matches each sound to different area of a piece of art they will notice new details and better understand what is happening in the image.
• Use the Cornell Box section of the “Play with Art” game to have students create a still life that is meaningful to themselves. Print the completed computer still life images and have students use the grid drawing processes to enlarge the image. Choose a media such as colored pencil or chalk for students to add detail to their personal still life drawings.
• Use the “Match Up” game as an introduction or extension activity for concepts like texture and shape.

Share how you could utilize this site in your classroom in the comments section below?