Here There Be Dragons: Mommy and Me Museum Adventure

I have no excuses for being a slacker on this journal.  Just moving and it taking time to get my groove back.

This museum adventure is from more than six months ago.  We're stepping back in time to our days frequenting the Boston MFA.  This is an adventure we'd love to repeat at our new favorite, the British Museum or the V&A sometime soon, though!  Who doesn't love dragons?  My boys are as  enchanted as can be about the mysteries of dragons.  Finding them in the art museum makes for a most excellent treasure hunt.

There's just something about choosing from a stack of free colorful flyers that can bring out the kid in anyone--especially if you are a kid!  Having a special paper to carry around gives a child a sense of responsibility and ownership.  My boys held on to their papers so carefully and wanted to find exactly the objects shown on the map.  There were clear instructions on where to find each of the objects, so it was easy to wander on our own but make sure we found what we were looking for.

The MFA has a whole section for kids' treasure maps, even on the days they don't offer a special program or art cart.  There are a lot of great choices.  Chocolate was high on my list of trails to follow.  Dragons won out, which was also fine by me.  Maybe we'll get back to the chocolate trail another time . . .

Once we had our selection--dragons, of course--we took a quick peek at where we were headed.  And into the Asian art wing we went.  We knew we were ultimately searching for this sleepy-looking dragon.  On the way, though, we spotted plenty more dragons guarding the path.

Many of the dragons were high above our heads and we had to crane our necks to find them.  They came in all sizes and styles, and all moods from fanciful to fierce.

Then we turned a corner and found him!  The dragon we'd been looking specially for.  He was in a huge series of panels that covered an entire wall.  The lighting was dim and mysterious, perfect for our slightly sad dragon.  We told each other stories of why he might be feeling the way he looked.

After we found as many dragons as we could spot in Asia (though I'm sure there were many more we didn't catch), we wandered through the Americas and forward in time many centuries.  There we found ourselves marveling at St Michael slaying the dragon.  (Actually, until I just looked it up in the catalog I thought it was St George and his dragon.  Shows how much I read labels when breezing through with small children!)  This image is from another visit, with a friend.  I included it because we returned to that painting almost every time we visited the museum.  The children want to see at least some of the same things every time, like reading the same familiar story.  Interesting how it is a picture like the shark painting or this dramatic dragon painting that hold such fascination.  Somehow I don't think it is necessarily comforting to see works like this every time, but it must be a learning process in some way.  The work is consistent each visit, but one's ability to understand and to feel may change and improve.

Does your museum provide these types of trail maps for your visit?  Can you create a simple one on your own?  Decide a topic for that day's visit and run with it!  Could you find brides, babies, knights, birds, flowers, trees in different seasons--anything that your child is interested in at the time might work.

Do you find yourself needing to come back to the same one or two works of art repeatedly?  What makes you want to engage with them again?  Does your child feel comforted to know they will see the same thing each time, in addition to discovering new and wonderful works?