Going to an art museum with children? Try playing "I Spy." This game allows kids to adapt a familiar game to an often unfamiliar setting. It also gives them a way to look at art by helping them locate ordinary objects. Finally, it encourages close looking at a single work of art. You can play this game with almost any genre, style, or period of art. Seventeenth-century still lifes feature wonderful foods and objects. American nineteenth-century landscapes allow discussion of weather, buildings, and land features. Portraits from any period contain interesting clothing, settings, and objects.
Start the game by reminding kids that this is a game for eyes only, not pointing fingers. Then pick a painting (though this also works with most sculptures) and have someone start the "I Spy" game by locating an object and waiting for others to spot it. The "spotter" can then spy the next object. You can also start with a question such as "What do you see?" and then follow that up with "What else do you see?" For many children (even young ones), identifying the objects can be a jumping off point for deeper discussion of what is happening in the painting. Later, with some children, you can ask questions about time and place, as in "Do you think this peron lives here now?" or "Do you think this is a picture of our hometown?" Follow it up with "what makes you say that?" which encourages supporting evidence for an answer.
If you are familiar with the museum or have a quick eye, you can enter an entire gallery asking children to find a particular kind of work of art, stating something like, "I spy a moutain," and letting the kids search the whole room. This works best in small galleries with few other visitors. An offshoot of this would be a treasure hunt, a very standard museum field trip activity.
But that will have to be another post.
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