Visiting The Art Museum With Kids Of All Ages!

Published on February 26, 2016

For eight great years I was an art educator at both the Cleveland Museum of Art and Akron Art Museum in Ohio. I had the privilege of sharing my passion with kids of all ages — from toddlers to seniors!

And now, it’s a pure joy to take my little guy to the Phoenix Art Museum and do the same.

We have lots of fun together — but I use a tiny trick that helps keep the little ones, like my 3 year old, engaged and loving every minute of it — and even my husband too!

Tale by Auturo Herrera

We transform our visit to the Museum into a hunt!

On the drive to the Museum we created a list for our hunt. Each of us chose one thing that we would all be on the look out for.

Phoenix: the color orange.
Mom: trees.
Dad: buildings.

Now of course, if your kids are much older you can sweeten the hunt by being a lot more particular. But with a 3 year old this list was perfect.

Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? by Rebecca Campbell

Before we left for our visit to the Museum, Phoenix and I made a pair of art hunting binoculars by gluing together two toilet paper rolls and decorating them with tissue paper.

But, unfortunately we forgot to bring them.

Yeah, I know — though luckily the hunt was still a success!

Farewell by Philip C. Curtis

Proud Owner by Samuel Rosenberg

At first we started by keeping track of how many pieces we found had one, two, or all three of the items.

Though eventually we stopped tallying and just enjoyed making our way through the Museum and looking for clues!

Irruption Series by Regina Silveira

My favorite piece from our visit was Irruption Series by Regina Silveira (photo directly above) — it’s kind of obvious why, don’t you think? This piece was made of vinyl transfers and it didn’t really fit into our hunt.

Phoenix’s favorite piece was the big sculpture (of course!) located in front of the Museum outside (photo below) and it too didn’t fit into our hunt.

But who cares! It’s art!