Museums are a great way to entertain your kids, either on a rainy Saturday afternoon at home or as part of a great itinerary when you’re traveling and exploring the wider world. Here are seven tips to ensure that your day out of the museum is sure to be an amazing experience from start to finish…
#1 – Look for museums interactive exhibits
For most people, “visiting a museum” is an activity that isn’t particularly active at all: you walk around, admiring the exhibits as you go, then visit the gift shop or on-site restaurant and go home. There’s nothing wrong with such an experience of course, but when with kids, museums that offer at least a few interactive exhibits are always going to be the best choice. Interactive exhibits help to truly ‘involve’ your kids in the day and can add an extra sense of fun and excitement that calmly viewing various objects or paintings is unlikely to be able to provide.
#2 – Create a sense of excitement and anticipation
To help get your kids excited for the trip, talk to them about the museum and highlight all of the amazing exhibits they’re going to be able to see or experience. You can use the museum’s website and – if available – YouTube videos to help with this, and it’s also worth making a note of any exhibits that your kids seem especially excited about so you know which areas you might want to make sure you see on the day.
#3 – Visit in the late morning
The timing of any visit to a museum is always important, and most parents find that the late morning tends to work best. Your kids will already have eaten (though it’s always worth taking a snack along, just in case) and should still be well-rested from the night before, so there’s more chance that they will be able to have the best possible time.
#4 – Keep your visit length relatively brief
When it comes to visiting a museum with your kids, the length of your visit will always be a little bit tricky. If you stay for too long, then there’s always the risk that exhaustion will set in; but if you plan a very short visit, there might not be the time to do everything your kids want to do. Most parents find a two or three hour visit is usually sufficient, especially for younger children.
#5 – Encourage them to record the experience
During your visit, you can hand out pencils and paper to encourage your kids to draw anything that catches their eye. This will give you the opportunity to linger – rather than need to move quickly from exhibit to exhibit – and should really help to increase their engagement with the whole experience too. Alternatively, you could let your kids be in charge of the camera so that they can capture their own unique things that interested them most.
I hope the tips above can help you – and your kids – to make the most of your next museum visit!