I noticed on Twitter last month that one of our local contemporary art museums, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO*, started offering a family-friendly scavenger hunt-type activity one Saturday a month. I was intrigued – neither my kids nor I had ever ventured over to the Kemper despite having visited its stately neighbor, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, on many occasions. So, last Saturday, we headed to Scavenger Saturday.
It was a gray, cold day – so we moved like a herd of turtles on the way out of the house that morning. Made it to the Plaza in time for lunch. After a quick bite to eat at the Plaza Winstead’s, we zipped up the hill.
I generally take only my older kids on museum-y adventures but, on this day, I had back-up (my husband) so we bravely brought the 3-year-old twins with us.
Parking was close-by and free. We hustled through the cold and entered the museum. The woman at the front door knew exactly why we were there (What? you don’t get many 3-year-olds on a normal day?) and handed us the scavenger hunt directions.
The directions pointed by older kids (1st and 2nd graders) to about five different pieces of art. I was a bit surprised at how small the gallery space is in the Kemper – very nicely done but small. As they discovered each work, they read about it on their information sheet and considered the questions listed about each piece. It was a nice and fun way to get the kids to really look at and consider the art.
We followed the scavenger hunt directions through the museum and then, when we were finished (it only took about 15 or 20 minutes), looped back around to take in some piecees that they especially liked or had missed the first time through.
Although I personally was a little disappointed by the small size of the museum’s galleries (my expectations were a bit out of whack), it turned out to be a good thing – the 3-year-olds had about all they could handle after about a half hour. On our way out, the kids received a paper bag which contained a new box of Crayola markers and an art project in line with the theme of the scavenger hunt (which was “time”).
I wouldn’t say that any of us were knocked out by this little outing – but everyone enjoyed it, for sure. The little ones liked playing with the water fountains as much as anything else – but that probably shouldn’t be too surprising! All in all, it was a nice, relatively calm activity for a cold, yucky winter day.
There are Scavenger Saturdays already on the schedule for March and April. You might also want to check out their Family Fun Day on March 27th or their artREACH workshops for kids.
*The other is the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art on the campus of Johnson County Community College. They offer children’s classes on Saturdays throughout the academic year.
