Marcos & Franny!
This weekend we welcomed Kids Club Thirteen family members to the museum for a Franny’s Feet Adventure. If you don’t know about Franny’s Feet, it’s a great animated PBS Kids program about a young girl who hangs out in her grandfather’s shoe shop. When customers bring in their shoes for repair, she slips into them and visits the places they’ve explored. It’s a wonderful program that inspires curiosity and understanding of other cultures, and leaves children wondering, “where will me feet take me today?”
Two years ago the Rubin Museum was approached to help write curriculum for three episodes featuring Tibet, India and Chinese New Year. It was a great opportunity to explore art and social studies for a preschool audience, and make fun Yak puppets
The weekend celebration was an excellent example of institutional collaboration, and brought many new families into the museum. We worked with the Thirteen outreach department to produce a wonderful family scavenger hunt of the Gateway to Himalayan Art exhibition. Thirteen provided volunteers to help with crafts and activities, and we screened episodes from the movie a number of times throughout the day. We also had a percussionist, Hector Morales, who performed music with Himalayan instruments for families at the end of the day.
The best part was watching the young families being led through the galleries to help complete the scavenger hunt. Many people groan when they think of preschool children exploring art museum galleries, but our team at the museum has grown accustomed to having little feet (with sometimes loud voices) in the museum, and it’s always amazing to hear what really young minds have to say about the artwork. I personally love seeing small children in the galleries with their families instead of tucked away in a classroom or lab. I think we tend to separate children from community experiences too often and seeing a small child engage with artwork can actually inspire new learning in adults. Also, parents are visitors too, and should always have the opportunity to look at works of art with their children. Below are two pictures of FRAN-tastic gallery experiences enjoyed by families this weekend.
Families exploring the map of the Himalayas
Aoife working with families and a scavenger hunt.