6 Games to Play With Your Child at the Museum

Nuria from the The Adventures Archive is here today to share some great ideas for learning through play at art museums.

Are you visiting an art museum with your children this summer? Here you have some ideas to make the most of the visit.

1. Start the visit in the souvenir shop. Let him choose a few postcards of the museum’s collection and then invite him to find them around the museum. Once he has found them all, ask him which one is his favorite and why. Tell him to write those reasons to the artist on the back of the postcard. Pretend to post the card. A few days later you may surprise him with a reply postcard written “by the artist”.

2. Bring props: Look at the paintings through a kaleidoscope, a fly eye pair of glasses or a magnifying glass and have a laugh together.

3. Mixing art: At home, draw lines on an A4 drawing paper to divide it into squares (if your child is very young start with just 4 squares, for 6+ children try at least 9). Once you are in the museum, let your child copy the top left part of the first painting in the top left square of the paper. Move to another painting and let him copy the top right one. Continue the visit, filling a square with each painting. You’ll end up with a fun and quirky mixed work of art.

4. Continue the story: Choose a painting and let your child look at the scene for a few moments. Then start “Once upon a time there was…” and describe the scene. Then, turn it over to your child and ask him to continue the story. If you have more than one kid they can take turns so they come up with a long story.

5. If you visit a museum of abstract art, ask your children to guess the title of the paintings. My daughters come up with the funniest titles like “Super Dot” or “The Clumsy Squares”. They marvel when I tell them that the real title is something like “Sunset” or “The Cow and the Moon”.

6. Create a character: Choose a portrait and let your child imagine who this person was: What was his name? What did he do? Where did he live? Back home, if it was a portrait of a historical figure, do some research with your child so he can learn the real story and compare it to the one he had imagined.