5 Philly art museums with kid-friendly activities

"A lot of us know what to do when we go to a baseball game: You buy a hotdog, yell a lot, clap and cheer and whistle," said Ruth Anderson, director of arts education at Doylestown's James A. Michener Art Museum. Less obvious: How you and your kids should approach a staid and seemingly stodgy art museum. Five big-deal venues share tips for introducing children to their collections, exhibitions, and programs - and have fun doing it.

» READ MORE: Barnes Foundation

Family programming is relatively new - as in, fewer than five years old - at the Barnes. At the interactive, twice-a-month Sunday afternoon "ArtSee" tours, as many as 15 adults and kids wear name tags and are encouraged to talk about what they see. The guided visits linger just six to seven minutes per work in larger rooms and take into account the ages of group members. Tours are customized. They're open-ended. And yet, unlike arts-and-crafty free first Sundays or Thursday morning story time (great for preschoolers. Next up: Madeline and Henri's Walk to Paris), the "ArtSee" tours don't always book up. The next tours are Sunday and June 19.

If you go: Ages 6-18, $10; ages 5 and younger, free.

Kids love: Henri Matisse's The Piano Lesson, Auguste Renoir's The Artist's Family, Vincent van Gogh's The Postman.

Tip: "Children have the purest eye. They don't need to know it was a Renoir, or the history of Renoir, to look deeply at art, to understand composition: light, line, color, shape, and space," said interim family and community program coordinator Suzanne Behmke.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia Museum of Art

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100.

Imposing and, this time of year, extra-kid-friendly, Philly's biggest art venue enters its fourth summer of Art Splash. The Perelman Building's "Creative Africa" adds art carts, studio programs, and craft tables, "six days a week, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.," July 1 through Sept. 5, said Emily Schreiner, the museum's curator of education and public programs. Twice-daily tours welcome children ages 3 to 5 at 11 a.m. and ages 6 to 10 at 3 p.m. Year round, the museum's main building hosts monthly stroller tours and family tours, along with "baby bird play dates." During the school year, children's Saturday art classes fill up, fast.

Admission: Ages 13-18, $14; ages 12 and younger, free.

Newish: The "A is for Art Museum" iPad tour for kids that "zooms you around the whole building," said Schreiner. Last summer, the tour attracted 4,000 users. It recently received a gold award for education and outreach technology from the American Alliance of Museums.

Kids love: Arms and Armor and Ceremonial Teahouse.

Tip: Liz Yohlin Baill, manager of family gallery learning, advised, "When you explore the galleries with your child, allow them to explain to you what's inspiring to them, what they're drawn to. Added Schreiner, "Kids don't just like things that are bright and shiny. Kids like things that are fascinating." See what yours have to say about Marcel Duchamp's readymades.

» READ MORE: PAFA

118-128 N. Broad St., 215-972-7600.

Come summer, the country's oldest art museum and school "goes full-on art camp," said Monica Zimmerman, director of museum education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There's still room to sign up for street art, digital storytelling, "dinosaurs galore," and other full-day weeklong sessions, which run June 27 through Aug. 19. Scavenger hunt for famous historic figures - George Washington's portrait, straight from the dollar bill; Benjamin West's The Treaty of Penn with the Indians - or just let them look for what they like and talk about it. "Museums are not libraries. PAFA is not a library. We want you and your kid having a conversation," said Zimmerman, "I've never meet a parent who didn't enjoy hearing what a kid thought a painting was in a new way."

Admission: Ages 13-18, $8; ages 12 and younger, free.

Year round: Free family art-making workshops encourage grown-up and kid collaboration with the goal of "strengthening family communication," said Zimmerman.

Kids love: Mickalene Thomas' glittery Din Avec la Main Dans le Miroir, the Moby Dick-esque Whalers.

Tip: Bring your middle schoolers: "They are the young person audience most at risk, especially in summertime, and they also have the greatest amount to gain through personal expression… This is the audience for whom art can create a different future than they've ever imagined."

» READ MORE: James A. Michener Art Museum

138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, Pa. 215-340-9800.

Kids' art classes, including a multigenerational look-and-make program, are popular, said arts education director Ruth Anderson. Temporary exhibits, such as the current "Philadelphia in Style" (through June 26) always include interactive components - this go-round, it's a spot to sketch your own haute couture. Kids can also learn on their own about the Pennsylvania impressionist-rich collection via a new, 23-stop youth audio tour. The tour includes a two-minute retelling of King Lear (to go with Barry Johnson's bronze) and a sound-effect-enriched description of Edward W. Redfield's The Burning of Center Bridge.

If you go: Ages 6-17, $8; ages 5 and younger, free.

Kids love: Nakashima Reading Room, Outdoor Sculpture Garden, and the museum's former identity as the Bucks County Prison, dungeon door and all.

Tip: "When my daughter was little, and we would go to museums, we'd bring a little drawstring bag with a sketchbook with blank paper, a pencil with an eraser, and a pencil sharpener with a canister attached to catch the shavings," said Anderson, " She loved sitting down, and looking at the artwork, and drawing. When she was older, she would write little stories about the works."

» READ MORE: Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art

1 Hoffman's Mill Road, Chadds Ford, Pa., 610-388-2700.

Few museums are as outdoor-friendly as this Wyeth-centric Chester County venue, where children's activities, including summertime "Museum Explorer" classes Thursday mornings, are intentionally brief and hands-on. "If your child needs to touch things, you can come and do that, and then go look at something in the gallery, and then go outside and take pictures by the riverbank," said Mary Cronin, dean of education and public programs. Visual literacy is the goal here. Programming begins at age 2. First Sundays ramp up family tours and activities.

Admission: Ages 6-18, $6; ages 5 and younger, free.

Big-deal event: Pirate Adventure Day, each fall, featuring a scavenger hunt among N.C. Wyeth's "Treasure Island" illustrations.

Coming up: "Get the Picture! Contemporary Children's Book Illustration," Mo Willems and all, July 1 to Oct. 9, promises to be the season's kiddie blockbuster.

Kids love: Jamie Wyeth's Portrait of Pig.

Tip: "I maintain looking is an activity. The youngest kids are some of the most observant; they can look very carefully and notice details adults often miss," said Cronin, adding, "They're often good at art terminology. It's similar to what they're able to do with dinosaurs:'Oh, that's a brontosaurus and they eat plants.'"