How to “Do” an Art Museum with the Kids

More and more art museums the world over are becoming kid-friendly places, offering paper-and-pencil treasure hunts for elementary school children, often with a prize or contest at the end, or family-friendly podcasts and App tours to the choicest bits of their collection.

But what if there’s no tour? What if your older child considers the museum treasure hunt “too young”? And what if you'd prefer that the children not separate from you, literally and physically?

You want to enjoy the museum experience together rather than have your kids plug in the earbuds...again!  Or perhaps you wish to make a return visit to a museum where the kids have already done the treasure hunt on offer. 

What do you do?

Create your own treasure hunt!  Here's how:

Tip #1 – Bring Supplies

A few easy snacks, like nuts and dried fruits, are always must-haves when tromping with the kid(s).  But en route to a museum add creative materials to your bag of tricks: sketch books, colored pencils, pastels, etc., whatever might pique your group's fancy.   

Now you know your kids best, so you decide whether you want to surprise them with these provisions once there or get them excited in advance by packing them into their own daypacks.  When Loo was younger, she had a designated “art bag” that remained at the ready for our museum outings, whether spontaneous or planned.

Tip #2 – Start at the End

Begin your visit at the museum shop. Direct your kids straight to the postcard section – I’ve never met a museum that didn’t have one – and invite them each to pick out three favorites.  Postcards sold at museums typically represent works of that collection.  But it’s best to make sure…

Tip #3 – Research Never Hurts

…Ask the kids to flip their cards over to find the name of the artist and title of the work.  You may know your art history well enough to tell them a bit about the movement or school into which each artist fell.  In all events, join the gang as they peruse the shelves for information on master and title.  Flip open books; browse through the glossy reproductions.  Study the museum map to locate where each masterpiece might be found within the museum’s holdings.  Watch as the kids use their map-reading and orientation skills to organize their route to each buried treasure.

Now armed with a bit of information about each work and where it is located, set off on your very own, self-styled treasure hunt!

Tip #4 – Observe as You Go

Okay, you may be on the trial of a handful of specific artworks, but that doesn’t mean you can’t observe others along the way.  Take advantage of the journey, pointing out this painting and remarking on that sculpture as you go.  But a word of caution: kids can get pretty directed at this stage and may not welcome too many distractions.

Tip #5 – Let them Find the Treasure

It’s a real pleasure to watch the kids use their clues as they zero in on their quarry.  They’ll refer to their maps, study their postcards, check the name or number of the exhibit room, notice the names of other painters hailing from the same era and school.  They may even be inspired to help one another! Just sit back and watch, stepping in only when you need to. Let them do it.

Tip #6 – Pick One

Now that you’ve unearthed each treasure, ask the kids to agree to go back to one single gem, or several gems within the same room. Once there, drop down on the floor and pull out your materials.  Take a minute to sketch with them yourself.  Once the kids are involved, you can leave them to go look around the museum on your own, straying only as far as your parenting feelers will allow. 

Fear not! Loo and I have done this on three continents and have never been chastised by a single museum worker.  In fact, we've found that they appreciate seeing kids engage with the art.  Once, at age eight, Loo wiggled her way through the crowd at Paris’ Louvre Museum intent on drawing the Mona Lisa. A cadre of guards stands over the famous painting every day, there simply to keep the hordes moving. No one gets more than a few minutes before they are asked to make room for next group of gawkers.  But on this day the guards did not once bother Loo.  They protected her and kept her safe from the picture-takers and tour groups brushing by her as she happily sketched away, oblivious to the crowd.

Tip #7 – The Prize

Of course, enjoying a museum and having a great drawing to take home as a souvenir is prize enough.  But nothing tops off a day at the museum like a hot chocolate and piece of cake. So take yourselves out for a bite afterward and talk about art!



Image:

Cousins getting ready for a trip to the museum with their new sketch book, photo credit: Sarah B. Towle © 2010.

Travel With Kids: To Go or Not To Go

My advice: Go!

Traveling with even the littlest ones in tow is an extremely rewarding experience. I’ve been traveling with Loo since her birth in a Hong Kong teaching hospital more than 15 years ago. Her first international voyage was at five-and-a-half months when the Uber-Mensch and I packed her into a baby carrier and “did” Malaysia. She trekked Nepal’s Annapurna Sanctuary with us when she was 17 months old; and climbed a good chunk of the Great Wall of China at 20 months. She discovered that Balinese monkeys aren’t very good at sharing on her 2^nd birthday, and the list goes on. Most recently, we explored every nook and cranny of Petra, Jordan, together, then galloped our way around Wadi Rum on purebred Arabian horses.

So you see, I speak with some authority when I say, “take the kids!” But I would also caution you to be willing to adjust your expectations for bringing the kids does change the way you travel.

For one thing, travel with kids shifts your day from nights to mornings. Gone are the late-night clubbing sprees (unless you can find a babysitter in your temporary locale). But there’s really nothing more magical than discovering a new city by dawn’s early light and sharing your first espresso with the locals as they start their day.

When Loo was four we spent two weeks in Tuscany with five days in Florence dedicated to looking at art. Thanks to Loo, who has always possessed the nasty habit of waking with the sun, our mornings began so early that we managed to avoid queues at even the most trafficked museums at peak tourist season!

We were the first to enter the Academia Gallery, for example, and thus we had Michelangelo's David to ourselves. That is until Loo, after slowly circumnavigating the impressive statue several times, head fixed upward, mouth wide open, eyes roaming over each enormous limb and feature, suddenly shrieked, “I can’t look at it anymore!”, and streaked right out of the museum.  Averting disaster, we made a swift exit ourselves.

Travel with kids offers you a new perspective. Perhaps you’ve never noticed how amazing a pigeon can be. Well, okay, I exaggerate. But the point is that traveling with kids forces you to look at the world from a different angle. We tend to travel quickly, taking in every possible site in the guide to the point of utter exhaustion. This just isn’t possible when traveling with kids.

Be ready for those unexpected moments. Like when your intended visit to that last monument is compromised because your little one just won’t be pulled away from the sand pit in the lovely Parisian neighborhood park you happened to stumble upon along the way. Give in; let it happen. So you missed Napoleon's Tomb, but there’s nothing quite like watching your kids negotiate playground rules in another language and culture.

Be willing to slow down and possibly even split up.  If confronted with the above situation, the UM would most assuredly have encouraged me carry on to see the Tomb. He prefers most of the time, like Ferdinand, to just sit and smell the roses while I like to go, go, go.  Adults can always split up for a little while, take turns playing tourist vs. soaking up local culture with the kids. There’s beauty in that too.

So, yes, take the kids. But don’t take their stuff.  Kids don’t need much when on the road. They can share your bed; take a nap in a carry pack or carrier; sit on your lap at a restaurant; and take a load off in a light, folding umbrella stroller. Their clothes fit easily in your suitcase and their books and small playthings can be stuffed on their own little bag which they can carry themselves.

By the age of five, Loo knew just what to put in her pint-sized pack and insisted, much to her parents chagrin, on carrying her own boarding pass!

Check out this post from Ciao Bambino! for more on the topic of traveling with kids.

Image of the Lucky-one-and-only (Loo), age five, driving around the Tuileries, Paris, France, © Sarah B. Towle, 2000.