Do you have art museums on your list of favorite family activities in San Francisco? May be not. Art museums are not always designed with kids in mind. de Young Museum in San Francisco is an exception from that rule. It does a great job of catering to youngsters and you can have an amazing family outing there. Below is a list of family friendly activities in de Young Museum.
de Youngsters Studio at de Young
This is a fairly sized space designed for kids to explore art and creativity. There are several hands-on stations in the studio where children can work on various unique art projects. This is not about taking a pencil and drawing, there is lots of high tech equipment involved. To tell you the truth, it was equally fun for adults 🙂
On the walls of the de Youngsters studio you can see monitors displaying dynamic educational information about various aspects of art creation (color, composition, texture, etc.)
Observation tower at de Young
Hamon Observation Tower is a glass walled space located on the ninth floor and offering 360 degrees panoramic views of San Francisco, including Golden Gate Park, San Francisco downtown, San Francisco Bay and Marine headlands. My kids were totally fascinated by the birds eye views of the city.
Glass and ceramics exhibition at de Young
I have noticed that in terms of art kids are more attracted to bright 3-dimensional objects rather than 2-dimensional art works. Glass and ceramics corner at de Young has some really cool exhibits from funny ceramics to exquisite Chihuli glass works (the sculpture depicted below if called “How to make the best European coffee 🙂 ).
Native art at de Young
Viewing native arts exhibits at de Young is like travelling around the world. At de Young you can enjoy indigenous people art exhibits from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
Sculpture garden at de Young
When the weather is cooperating you can enjoy a nice garden outside the museum with interesting sculptures – Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden. After that you can have some fun at the square between de Young museum and California Academy of Sciences. This is a great place for kids to run off some steam. From time to time you can also catch a free concert there as well.
FREE tours at de Young
de Young offers many free tours (with admission). I believe the most interesting for kids is a 30 minutes tour called “Three Masterpieces in Thirty Minutes”, offered daily except Mondays.
Family perks at de Young
Note, that kids admission to de Young is always FREE of charge (up to and including 17 years of age). Recently, de Young established a new perk: FREE Saturdays for all (but you have to be a San Francisco resident). When your youngsters get hungry de Young has a cafe on site.
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