Art Museums Visits for Older Children

Viewing Art for Families With Elementary School Aged Kids

Oct 3, 2009

Art museum family visits are a fun indoor kids activity. Elementary school aged children can learn and be inspired by the works of art viewed.

The American Association of Museums estimates that there are approximately 17,500 museums in America alone. Visiting an art museum with a grade school aged child can be an extremely rewarding (and educational) experience for the child and parents alike. This article presents some basic ideas and suggestions for visiting an art museum with a child during the elementary years.

Choosing a Child Friendly Art Museum

With the variety of art museums and galleries available, it may be a daunting task deciding on the right or appropriate family choice. The International Council of Museums website contains a database that features many different museums around the world.

Look for a museum that meets the specific needs for a family with a child (or children) of elementary school age. Make sure that the majority of the artwork featured is age appropriate and will be of interest. It may be helpful to first think about what the child is currently learning about in school. Try to find a museum that has a permanent or special exhibit that corresponds. Ideas may include:

Viewing Art With Children

Whether the child is five or in fifth grade, art viewing explorations can be a wonderful experience as well as a valuable learning tool. People all over the world across many different times have found the beauty and knowledge gained through interacting with art in all forms.

The researcher Abigail Housen has created a visual stage theory for a person’s aesthetic viewing development. This theory supposes that a person goes through multiple stages or patterns as art viewing experiences develop and progress. An inexperienced viewer (many young elementary aged children may fall into this category) is in the accountive stage of viewing development. During this stage the viewer uses internal narrative or storytelling devices to interact with the artwork.

Viewing art with a child in the accountive stage may mean allowing the child to make concrete observations about what is seen. Parents (and other adults) can help the viewing experience by asking open ended questions and allowing the child to discuss what he or she finds in the artwork. More information on aesthetic development stages and viewing art with children can be found at the Visual Understanding in Education website.

Art History and the Child Viewer

It is tempting to add in lots of historical facts and dates when viewing art with children. This is a helpful tool, but should be reserved for a post viewing activity. Allow children to come up with individual impressions and thoughts about what is viewed without imposing an adult created preconceived story of the work first.

Elementary school aged children often find learning to mean an adult teacher lecturing on a topic or memorizing random facts. Change this experience, and encourage the child to construct his or her own meanings and interpretations from the art work. Following this, add in corresponding information. Additionally, if a child has already learned a historical fact in school encourage him or her to initiate a discussion on this topic.

Try to integrate added information with a specific comment. For example, if the family is viewing an impressionist work by Claude Monet a child might say something such as, "That looks like blurry colors up close, but more clear from far away". At this point the adult may want to add in information about the artist and the history of the style development.

Visiting an art museum can be a fun and exciting family activity. Make the most out of this time by choosing the right museum for the needs of the family, allowing children to talk about the artwork, and making critical art and historical connections to the child initiated comments.

The copyright of the article Art Museums Visits for Older Children in Kids Indoor Activities is owned by Erica Loop. Permission to republish Art Museums Visits for Older Children in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.