The Any Given Child Program
In 2012, the City of Fresno became the tenth U.S. city chosen by the Kennedy Center to participate in the Any Given Child (AGC) program. The program provides assistance in developing and implementing a plan for expanding arts education in the schools, ensuring access and equity to the arts for all students in grades K-8. The assistance from the Kennedy Center is in the form of professional development for teachers and administrators, advice, training, and guidance on arts integration. In partnership with the Fresno Office of the Superintendent of Schools (or FOSS, formerly known as FCOE for Fresno County Office of Education) the Fresno Art Museum was chosen as a partner to provide visual arts to teachers and students and became a visual arts destination for every third grader and their teachers in the Fresno Unified School District (FUSD), which has over 6,000 third grade students. During the 2017/18 school year, the program was expanded to include the Sanger Unified School District and another 1,000 third graders.
The Fresno Art Museum curates one exhibition annually, which focuses on illustrations and illustrators to support the program, and has created, in cooperation with FOSS and FUSD, an arts-integrated unit plan. The current exhibition is entitled Once Upon a Book illustrated by Grace Lin and co-written by Grace Lin and Kate Messner. More information about the exhibition can be found by clicking here.
For the convenience of teachers, we have posted new videos and program materials for the 2024/25 school year.
The newly revised and updated Unit Plan for the 2025/26 school year is coming in August 2025.
Watch our videos that support this program
The Unit Plan above is designed as a pre-visit and follow-up to the in-person Museum visit by Fresno Unified and Sanger Unified 3rd grade students, however, any teachers are invited to use it with or without an actual visit. Note that many of the gallery tour videos are from previous Museum exhibitions. The current exhibition gallery walk-through and related art lesson can be found there too, but they do not need to used unless you are making a virtual visit only or if you want to review the exhibition after your in-person visit.
What is a Museum? (a handout for students)
Suggestions for Teachers to prepare for your in-person museum visit
How to succeed at teaching an art lesson
FAM HAS LIMITED AVAILABILITY FOR MORNING FIELD TRIPS THROUGH MID-APRIL 2025 BECAUSE OF BOOKINGS BY FRESNO & SANGER UNIFIED. THERE IS MORE AVAILABILITY FOR AFTERNOON TOURS ; SOME MORNING TOUR TIMES ARE AVAILABLE FROM MID-APRIL THROUGH THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR.
All teachers planning to visit any art museum can share this great video on art museum etiquette with students. It was produced by KQED in collaboration with BAVC's youth production project, The Factory, and the de Young Museum's Teen Ambassador program in San Francisco, California. Click here to watch.