To ask if you visit museums?

[Aloezebra]

Slightly shamelessly doing a bit of anecdotal “research” for my degree but also just generally interesting in people’s opinions because it’s a topic I love!

Do you go to museums/galleries? If yes, why and if no why not?

Also do are you more likely to go if there’s some sort of activity for your kids to do?

Yes, used to go a lot. These days will pretty much only go if it makes a good day out out for the kids. Interactive galleries and animatronic dinosaurs have been the main draws so far.

I absolutely love museums, and I've taken my daughter to plenty.
She's now 18 and wouldn't go to one herself 😆
The trade when she was little was that I'd buy her something from the gift shop (her favourite thing even now, spending my money 😁)

Love a museum, and always take the kids. It's great when they have stuff for kids, but if not we work around it. Sometimes all it takes is an activity where they have to find stuff - something in painting, hidden objects in a gallry

I love taking DC to museums and galleries, we go at least once a week. Yes, almost exclusively go to ones that are set up for children to enjoy.

This won't apply to your particular activity, but the set up is what keeps DC (3 years old, but this applied even when younger) entertained. The museums near us have a few small activities in each room, vaguely related to the topic of the room. Things like: dino duplo in the dinosaur room, light up eggs in the reptile room, toy cars in transport room, remake this jug in ancient pottery room, etc. period dress up clothes. The very best ones have a dedicated play room, which you can use as the treat as you look round the exhibits.

In general we prefer free play activites. Less likely to sit down and follow instructions to make a particular craft, far more likely to approach a pile of craft materials and start scribbling. Also far more likely to start playing with toys than follow an instruction on how to use them. So I would probably try and create lots of opportunities for child led independent play. Things that will be new for them are also a hit, in our local museum they have things like distorting mirrors and kalaidescopes (sp?) which keep them entertained because they're novel. Doesn't have to be expensive, the kalaidescope place also has these tubes with coloured see through paper over the top, kids love looking through them and seeing everything in different colours, wouldn't have taken long to make.

Yes, live in London. Have membership as well.

NA - dc now adults. But when younger visited a lot.

Yes. But I'm only interested in exhibits to do with domestic life really. Science leaves me totally cold as does natural history. I love a living museum, and anything that brings historical domestic arrangements of any era to life for me is a winner.
I enjoy galleries.
No young DC, but when I had I'd take them. Not a fan of children's activities, and neither were they. Although they would enjoy the odd reenactment and oppprtunity to handle objects.Our preference was usually just to experience and discuss the exhibits for what they were, rather than the distraction of treasure hunts, colouring in etc.

@Aloezebra yes to museums and no to galleries, ok have been to tate modern, national and so on, but not too excited about others

kids yes, have taken them all their lives and so much that now at 8 and 10 they ask to go.

science museum, natural history, museum of london... we try and link what the topic is at school and go and see - fire of london, sutton hoo and so on...

surprise hits the most obscure ones, we LOVE the Pencil Museum in Keswick... but beware, while they have two trails - great to do - they have a kids one and a older teens/adult one and the 10yo felt talked down to when offered the kids one she didn't even want my help at all to prove to the lady she could do the older one...

activities should not take too long, you can dip in and out and have a range of ages

I discovered a new area in the science museum in london which may interest you, has home tech from old days to now, see the inside of a flush, of a washing machine, microwave, and other stuff, victorian home tech and so on...

I take my kids to the Science & NHM a few times a year, but only when it's a school holiday. We always go to stay with DM in half term, a week at Christmas/Easter and a couple of weeks in the summer. She lives closer to London and her public transport is much better. They both love going.

We have no museums close to where we live, apart from the "History of Town" one, which DD went to on a school trip and said it was just one small room! If we had some interesting ones I'd take them.

Yes.

I get annoyed when there's often no middle ground between "item displayed in glass box with a section of small font text to read " (fine for adults) and interactive exhibit involving sensory experience/dressing up/videos but little actual information (intended to engage kids).

I'd like it if as well as the main text for adults, there was a simpler section that children can comfortably read and understand themselves - eg shorter bullet points, large font, well spaced, some illustration and language accessible to kids of 6-9.

I did a degree that involved some understanding of the heritage sector and of course the biggest museums are often better on this, but there's too many screens used imho.

I think occasionally curators over think young kids too. They don't really need bells & whistles.

My two both really like the nhm at Tring which is basically old fashioned - bugs in boxes.
They love nhm in london too, mainly the dinosaurs bit but eldest really isn't fussed about the movinh exhibits. Perfectly happy looking at a fossil skeleton wtc.

Yes/Yes

Bloody love museums. Particularly little knobbly, volunteer-led ones.

Best kids' activities ... I think when they actually are relatively physical, not paper-and-pen based. Dressing-up-boxes are fun, Pencil Museum (I LOVED) had a far-too complex and boring 'fact scavenger hunt'. But a few really weird and wonderful exhibits, that's what they remember - a sea urchin helmet, Robert the Bruce's skull, a strokable stuffed seal.

I used to take my dd every week to the science museum. They had a brilliant toddler interactive section and a soft area with books. A decent cafe too.

I also don't like screens. Very few of the screen activities are genuinely educational and interactive, but kids flock to them because they're giant screens. I don't want my kids to think that going to museums = staring at screens, and it usually leads to frustartion as I don't let them stare at them for long.

DarkShade

See this is interesting because i am not a fan of all the stuff for playing. Because my kids can free play at home, preschool wherever.

We want to be doing something unique to being in a museum - learning about the objects etc. I'd be more likely to take them to something like a session where they could handle artefacts etc, or an activity much more closely linked to whats in the museum.

I find that when there's dressing up or toys or whatever children gravitate to those items when they'd have been quite happy browsing if they weren't there. You then chat to them later and they can't even remember what was in the actual museum exhibits, only the toys or crafts which we have at home anyway.

Yes probably at least 10 a year. Do not have school age children so cannot comment on the second question of the OP.

Interest in certain artists and art periods the main reason.

Lots of museum visits in this house - mostly since having children, though would occasionally do a special exhibition or gallery pre-kids.

Mostly reading this thread for inspiration! My kids are 5 and 2 and like different things (the 2 year old MUCH more engaged by an activity, the 5 year old likes finding out things, mostly explained by me).

Some of the best things we’ve done are: Science museum ‘Garden’ in the basement - water play etc - they occasionally have story activities there too which have been quite good, the Hormiman museum generally, Tate modern which has kids art sessions related to the latest exhibition which are free and absolutely brilliant (2 year old gets excited when she sees the building) as well as some excellent escalators for riding afterwards(!), National maritime museum which has a great mix everything including a gigantic world map to run about on and fab soft play called ‘Ahoy’, The Postal Museum, Transport Museum.

weirdly, least successful for us was the NHM - 5 year old loves dinosaurs but it didn’t really suit him - felt a bit dark and geared towards older children?

Yes. We have been lucky enough to travel a bit recently (with a big break during lockdown) and have been lucky enough to see some amazing collections. Just back from Spain where we visited some great places - some free. Cost makes a difference.

In the summer we went to Paris and revisited the Louvre - the floor plan and signage was so out of date we got very frustrated. The smaller places again had interesting collections.

London has some very interesting places off the beaten track.

Yes - was taken a lot as a child to museums. Didn't really do art galleries till adulthood and DH - but have done museums and art galleries as an adult.

We probably do more post children than we did before.

Some are better than others - ones with lots of screens and buttons especially if they aren't working are't fun. Personally I'm not always a fan of trails as kids then forget to look round actual exhibits and focus on finding the items.

We go because they are good days out - or somewhere to spend a few hours in a new place and there's some fun and educational value to be had from them.

Whitworth art gallery we love as young adults was incredibly unfriendly even with older kids/early teen - we'd hit it on a family day as well - just loads of staff in every room rushing over as soon as they saw kids - mine knew how to behave and literally just walked in before they had an adult rushing over berating them and telling them not to do x and y - it was unbelievable stressful and we soon left. I do wonder if they'd had some terrors in just before us but DH thought they were just unused to children.

yes we go to museums.
Now we have a toddler so are more likely to go to child friendly ones. Eg ones where they are enclosed so she can roam freely, and there aren't dangerous things she can get to / damage by touching. Suddenly barriers are important haha! - we went to one where the "barrier" between visitors and exhibits was just a single bar at (my) waist height, so obviously she just walked straight under it...
Facilities are important too - is there space to get a pram round? (and step free access), a baby-changing? a cheap, decent cafe?

Oh, thank you! That would be of interest.

Yes, just thinking about it I have been/taken my DC to lots of museums and different types as well. Mine are tweens now, so not your target audience.
I take them because especially recently we live such little lives in our local area with a set routine and I want to show them in a more 'real' way our heritage/history and broader aspects of every day to give them a different perspective eg building design considerations in areas affected by earthquakes or just areas of eg art that they might rarely come across day to day. To hopefully make them more curious and broad minded.
I think whether the activity is the reason for going to the museum or the museum itself depends on whether it is a more regular or one off type visit by the family.
I have never taken my dc to a museum specifically because of an 'extra' activity put on in the museum, but this maybe because there aren't that many museums where I live, so have mainly travelled to them since DC were 4/5 and on holidays.

I love museums, my children don't... DD is too old to care for children's activities so just moans through museum visits but activities for DS makes visits easier. But mainly we rarely go, just to the local art museums when they have an interesting new display, and then if travelling I go to museums I find if I can.

Yes. In the last year we've been to the Natural History Museum (I'm always slightly disappointed there - signage is awful for one thing) for my daughter to do research for her Art A level; also the Disney exhibit at the Wallace Collection (again for my daughter's research) which was excellent; the Holburne Museum in Bath as we were visiting for the first time and well worth it; the V&A as it's my favourite. We did an open studio tour in our area, visiting about 7 or 8 different artists (not sure if that counts). I've also popped into a couple galleries while just walking around if there's something interesting looking in the window.
My family has a long interest in art. My parents were collectors and supporters of new artists and visited so many galleries and museums in the course of the year you couldn't count them. I have a degree in design and my daughter wants to go to art school.

Can we have an adults only day please? I now go to paid exhibitions only when I can hope that the school parties haven’t taken over, talking loudly, arguing, pushing the paying visitors out of the way. Great for children to go. Great for adults to go in peace, just occasionally ( major donor to a museum speaking).