Five ideas for engaging your kids in an art gallery

1. Go on a Scavenger Hunt: Make your visit to an art gallery more fun by adding a little seek and find into your day. Craft a scavenger hunt list before your visit and print off one for everyone. Challenge your kids to find everything on the list. Adjust the difficulty level for the age of children involved. For example; find something blue (pre-schoolers), discover 5 faces (younger school-aged), locate a specific artist (Older school-aged).

2.  Make a top 5 list of your favourite pieces: We all have our likes and dislikes. Ask your children to vote on their top 5 pieces. Make it more challenging by picking favourites from specific mediums (i.e., best sculpture) or artists. Compare what they like to everyone else’s choices in your group and why. You can balance this with a discussion on what they didn’t like as much and why not.

3. Identify different styles of art: Art can be made in so many different ways. See if your children can identify the medium used to create artwork (i.e. pencil, watercolour, oils). Point out the varied mediums used and compare it to their own styles and what they might have at home. Can you find abstract pieces? How about still life images, portraits, landscapes? You can precede your visit with an introduction to art at home, or expand on your art gallery experience by reading up on specific artists or styles later. Better yet, bring along some different mediums of your own and have them sketch their own while you are there!

 4. Strike a pose: Many art pieces contain people. Challenge your children to copy the poses from the paintings. This brings a kinetic energy to the experience, which is perfect for wiggly kids. You just might take a stoic Mona Lisa or handsomely posed David home at the end of the day.

5. Find a friend: Encourage children to slow down and look closer at paintings by getting them to find familiar things. Bring the art work alive and make it more personal and accessible, by bringing it into their own world (ex. That man looks like Uncle Jack! I see my dog Shadow. She looks like my teacher.). You might find some funny comparisons, especially if you get them to find a painting that resembles themselves or you!