Things I'm Not Telling the Kids: Museums

Museums are not my favorite places to go. There, I said it, but don't tell the kids.

Both last summer and this summer, I made sure to put "Go to a museum" on our list of things to do. This year we went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Honestly, I think we went into the wrong part first. I don't like contemporary art. I did my best not to show it. David, Jr. looked at one piece and said he thought a baby did it. Allyssa looked at another and said, "That's just a piece of fabric with a line on it." Ugh. If it weren't for modern art, museums might be more interesting.

We enjoyed the room with Egyptian artifacts in it. Allyssa remembered studying about Egypt when we homeschooled and we talked about sarcophagi and mummies.

Some rooms had maps on them that showed where the country was, so we got to talk about geography. That was fun. The kids are using some place mats right now at home that have maps and other things on them. We are learning where different countries are while we eat. We talked about the maps and had a good time looking at them.

We enjoyed some of the other rooms as well, but sometimes I found there to be too little information. Can you tell me more than this is a vase from a certain country? Was it buried under the dirt and you found it? Has someone owned it since it was made? What was it used for? Who used it? Can I have a whole page of information about this?

Some rooms had items with no plaques at all. We were left wondering what the statue or art work was called and who made it.

One section looked really interesting, but they wouldn't let us in. I guess it was a special display and since we were there for the free Thursday, we must have had to pay extra, but we weren't told. We were just shooed away. I tried to ask, but the lady just said, "You have to have the brown sticker." Okay then.

When we did make it over to a section that I thought might be fun to see, it was time to go. The kids were tired of looking around and it was time for lunch.

While museums aren't my favorite place to go, I enjoy taking the kids to them. We do learn a little and see some things that we've learned about before that are interesting.


We did get a few pictures when we first got there of the kids inside one of the exhibits. They thought it was neat.