5 Top Art Museums for Kids

Art museums are the perfect source to give an exposure to your kids to the visual arts, especially in creative ways. It is a great tool that expands a child’s awareness of the world and can be used for learning in science, history, mathematics, and much more. Here, we are going to discuss 5 top most art museums which are perfect for your kids. Let’s have a look:

Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago opened its first children’s gallery in 1926. Its legacy is the state-of-the-art Kraft Education Center which puts art in context. They offer “Mini Masters” classes for 3 to 5 year old accompanied by an adult. They provide an hour long program which takes place on most Saturdays during the school year includes reading a picture book, examining two to three works of art in one of the galleries, and doing an art project. Also, hosts themed Family Art Camps for kids and adults during one week in the summer; participants explore paintings, prints, and sculptures in the galleries.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

This museum provides an hour long introduction to the museum’s collection for families with kids aged from 5 to 12. The introduction part also includes sketching the masterpieces. These classes are organized on every Sunday in March. It boasts a non-circulating library with 450 picture books for kids including a collection of titles that have won the Caldecott Medal. The Met hosts the most family programs of any museum in which 44 are scheduled for March alone including “Start With Art” and “Look Again”. The museum also offers 10-hour long family audio tours.

Dayton Art Institute

The Dayton Art Institute is known to locals as “Dayton’s living room,” a reference to the fact that nearly all of Dayton comes together there. Thus, DAI is a living room or an interactive family gallery, and a place where kids can do as much as they view. It offers three thematic, self-guided gallery hunts with packets of hip and colorful clue cards that send kids to five works of art per hunt, and ask them questions about what they see. They add activities that help children understand the art, the form, and function.

De Young, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco

Located in Golden Gate park, the De Young Museum’s landmark new building, featuring a dramatic copper facade, is a work of art itself. And its substance even exceeds its style. It has a children’s Garden of Enchantment which leads to the entrance of the museum’s education gallery; it’s dotted with adorable animal sculptures and features a pond. It hosts two family tours led by docents or museum artists every Saturday and offers family audio tours geared to its permanent collections and special exhibitions. It has also received a President’s Council on Arts and the Humanities award for its Museum Ambassador program which educates low-income high school students in art and trains them to teach school-age children.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

It was started in 1997 as an experimental space to test new ways of showing art to people of all ages and now it has become the encyclopedic museum itself. It provides family tours in English and Spanish as a part of its “Family Days” program which includes hands-on art-making and live theatrical, musical, or dance performances every Sunday of the year. It also offers family gallery guides with inventive approaches; one, called Oddball Art sends families to three modern works with questions to ask at every stop.