A Collection of Museum Visits

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The word "museum" might conjure up images of a musty building full of odd artifacts unearthed from obscure archaeological sites, and unless that particular niche is what interests kids, it may not sound all that exciting. But museums come in many varieties, and they are not all silent or austere, nor are they all indoors. Chances are, whatever your interest or collection, there's a museum somewhere devoted to it. 

It's not like we make a huge point of visiting museums all the time, but we've found some pretty interesting ones in our travels and close to home. Sometimes the kids found them interesting too! Here are just a few of our favorites.

Now an art museum sounds like exactly the kind of place where high-brow folks would stand around using incomprehensible gibberish to gush about an artist's work and where kids would not be welcome. However, the Baltimore Museum of Art is very accessible for kids and really isn't intimidating at all. We enjoyed a homeschool field trip there a couple of years ago and keep meaning to go back. The BMA happens to the have the world's largest holding of Henri Matisse's work so the Matisse gallery is a must-see.

When we visited, this was the piece Kennady wanted most to see - Composition V by Piet Mondrian.

There are collections of artwork in many styles and mediums, and most are arranged by era. The contemporary and modern galleries are the most interactive, but our group could only handle so much abstraction!

Possibly The Thinker by Auguste Rodin is also trying to figure it out.

You can see the rest of my pictures and description of this art museum field trip in my post  Baltimore Museum of Art Field Trip.

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Speaking of art, we found a unique little museum on our recent trip to Columbus. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum is in the Ohio State University Libraries. It is free, and quite interesting.

We viewed the exhibit Cartoon Couture, a collection of cartoons and comic art focusing on fashion and clothing trends. The collection featured ads, comic strips and books, paper dolls, and cartoon art; and showed how cartoon art satirized fashion trends and fads, but was also used to advertise and spread information about ready-to-wear clothing especially in the early part of the 20th century.

Another exhibit was Looking Backward, Looking Forward: U.S. Immigration in Cartoons and Comics. This featured political cartoons and other artwork related to the topic of immigration policy in America. And here we thought it was just during the last couple of years that Americans have debated a border wall! Political cartoonists like Thomas Nast and Joseph Keppler have been weighing in on this controversial subject with humor and interesting perspectives on both sides for at least 150 years.

Immigration restriction was the topic of this political cartoon in 1904.

Taking in refugees was the subject of Joseph Keppler's piece in Puck magazine in 1880.

There were other collections as well, but my favorite was the section featuring the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.

You can see all my pictures and description of this field trip in my post Virtual Refrigerator - Cartoon Museum Art Field Trip

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Did you know there's a museum building dedicated to buildings? Yeah, I didn't either, but my husband did. And he kept bugging me to go with him to visit the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.. I'm glad he talked me into this hubby-and-me trip, as it was a pretty interesting place. When we were there the featured exhibits were Timber City (benefits of timber construction and had models of many impressive all-timber structures from around the world), Around the World in 80 Paper Models (models of buildings popular over the years, both as architect's models and for educational purposes), Cool & Collected: Recent Acquisitions (an eclectic selection of building and architecture acquisitions), and House & Home (a history and sort of scrapbook of home construction and furnishings in the United States).

Me sporting a plaster mustache in the Cool and Collected exhibit

The building that houses the museum is beautiful in its own right, and has a fascinating history. You can get all the details at the National Building Museum website, on the History page.

You can see all my pictures and descriptions of this museum trip in my post A National Building Museum PhotoJournal.

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Lighthouses are definitely interesting buildings, and our oldest son got us into visiting lighthouses during the last couple of vacations he took with us. Some lighthouses are now part of state or national parks, and welcome visitors.

This one is Marblehead Light, in Ohio.

How would you like to walk this stairway every night to light the lamps?

At Ponce Inlet Lighthouse in Florida, you can climb similar stairs to the top of the lighthouse . . .

and you can also visit the Ayres Davies Lens Exhibit Building to learn more about the Fresnel lens. That's right - a museum dedicated to lighthouse lamps and lenses. It's really neat.

 

Find out more in my post History Lesson - Lighthouses.

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On that same trip to Florida, we visited the museum in Castillo de San Marcos (a national park). The castillo was built by the Spanish to defend St Augustine, and is the oldest stone fort still standing in the US, with the city gates and a portion of the stone wall dating from 1702 still standing.

Some of the very best museums - and the most appealing to students - are living history museums. The Colonial Spanish Quarter Museum in St Augustine offers a glimpse of how Spanish colonists lived during that time. One of the characters we met was a scribe-churchman, who explained to us that our family's British last name would likely have cost us our freedom, and perhaps our lives if we'd visited St Augustine during its Spanish heyday. Religious tolerance was not their strong point.

St Mary's City is a wonderful living history museum closer to our home, located on the eastern shore of Maryland. Today at Historic St Mary's City, visitors can see what colony life was like in this fourth permanent British settlement in North America, which was founded in 1634. There is a working print house, an apothecary, a tobacco plantation, and the state house. There's also a replica of the ship that carried the first settlers to Maryland's shore.

You can find out more about both of these living history museums in my post From the High School Lesson Book: St Augustine and St Mary's.

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Another living history museum that we enjoyed is the Genesee Country Village and Museum near Rochester, New York.

The village itself is in three "sections" - a Pioneer Settlement, an Antebellum Village, and a Turn of the Century area.  Visitors can view houses and farms, a Quaker meeting house, a schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, and a brewery. There are many other tradesman shops as well, including a wainwright, potter, cooper, tinsmith, and gunsmith. There is also a Silver Base Ball Park, with a turn-of-the-century style field where tournaments with late 1800s rules are played. 

schoolhouse, c. 1822

You can see more pictures (I think! I'm in the process of updating pictures on older posts!) and description in my post Genesee Country Village and Museum

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Our boys especially liked visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Although it's called a hall of fame, it's really a museum. There are sports-related museums all over the United States and Canada.







My pictures need to be updated, but there's more information in my B is for Baseball post.

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There are all kinds of museums that appeal to all kinds of interests, and most are very friendly to homeschoolers, so they make excellent field trips and additions to a family vacation itinerary. What are some of the most interesting and fun museums you have visited? Leave a comment and let me know!

This post is linked at the Encouraging Hearts & Home Blog Hop hosted by Apron Strings & Other Things; and at  the Homeschool Linky Party on the Homeschool Review Crew blog. 

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This post is part of the March 2019 Homeschool Collection on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.

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