The Brandywine River Museum offers many tours for schools and community groups to get children more involved in the arts.

Image

This summer, the Latin American Community Center of Wilmington brought their campers to the museum to experience art of the Brandywine Valley and also to make art of their own. One of the tour guides, Debbie, started off by explaining to campers different ideas such as the definition of an art museum, how preserving nature is important and how the museum and conservancy came to be. As the campers’ became excited about museums, the guide brought them into the gallery to learn about landscapes. The tour allowed the campers to make their own observations, ask questions, and answer trivia about the works. While learning art vocabulary and the history of the pieces, the campers began to feel more comfortable with the different works in the galleries.

Once the tour was completed, the campers took their new knowledge of landscapes and sketched along the banks of the Brandywine River. The students were very interested in all the different bugs and plants surrounding them. One group was even lucky enough to have a fish rise right next to them.

After the campers had completed their sketches, they were brought inside to cool off and complete another project with leaf rubbing plates. It was great to see the kids connecting the leaf rubbing plates to the real plants and leaves that they had just seen outside. The day ended with all the students excited about what they learned and saw, and talking about how they wanted to come back to the museum to show their families the nature and art of the museum.