Imagine standing in the middle of an art gallery- scanning the environment as you spin 360°. Museum curators place pieces together for a reason. Perhaps by artist, period, style, origin, or theme. Drawing attention to the organization can help kids make connections!

Curator Organization by Origin

The Museo de América in Madrid contains artifacts brought back by Spanish explorers. The well-preserved collection certainly engages my curiosity about conquistadors and colonialism. Because of the museum’s layout, our kids quickly made connections to their learning about Peru and Colombia.

Curator Organization By Style

“Why do you think the curator put these together?” Our brains categorize information naturally. By bringing attention to how curators may have organized pieces, kids can build stronger categories in their minds.

As we entered a Reina Sofia Museum room, the kids recognized the style and immediately shouted “We found Picasso!” Well, no, not ONLY Picasso. The Cubism room actually contains works by Picasso, Leger, and Juan Gris. After asking them why they thought the curator put the works together, the kids learned:

• Artists can use similar styles
• Curators organize rooms by category

Guess the Curator’s Organization

At the Picasso Museum Malaga, the first room’s wall description stated the museum’s organization covers five periods of Picasso’s life. Connecting to what we’d learned about Picasso at home, my son said, “Oh yeah, like Picasso’s Rose Period and Blue Period!”

Actually, it was divided by time periods of Picasso’s life. Even though his guess was incorrect, he made a connection that helped him look for clues of whether he was right or not.

The kids loved searching for the paintings from our Roll-A-Picasso Activity at home. The boys and I had a much deeper appreciation for this collection of his work after that simple, fun activity. We will definitely replicate this activity again with other artists!

Be a Curator

There are 99,000 precious “masterpieces” that our kids create. One way that we keep the volume under control are these awesome Li’l DaVinci Frames. Each child is the curator of his own frame which holds 20+ works of art.

These were a Mother’s Day gift. We recommend them anytime a friend is looking for a holiday or birthday gift idea.

Curious Curators

Try some of these with your kids and let us know how it goes!

• How did the Curator organize the art for this space?
• Why do you think the Curator put these together?
• How did you decide what to display in your Curator Frame?