Explore for yourself

  1. Four top tips for families
  2. Other ways to explore

 

Other ways to explore

Here are some ways to enjoy your time together as a family.

Go on a scavenger hunt

Try making a themed family visit, looking closely for as many dogs, babies, shoes, dragons, hats or trees that you can find. You could even start by looking online and printing out things that look interesting, or buy postcards in the shop that you like, and then ‘hunt’ for the pictures in the Gallery.

Make your own gallery

Organise your favourite paintings by striking and unusual themes, such as:

  • paintings featuring storm clouds
  • houses with fires burning
  • men holding shields
  • women with babies
  • people who are smiling
  • people wearing hats
  • people bending over or twisting
  • paintings with imaginary creatures

Talk about how you’ve chosen to put these paintings together with your family, and discuss why they aren’t organised like that. How are the paintings organised?

Storymaking as you go

Make up a story as you journey through the Gallery:

  1. Pick a portrait you would like as the main character of your story
  2. Choose a landscape as a setting and start to tell your tale
  3. Pick another painting and build it into the story
  4. Move on to another painting and develop the story as you go, incorporating each new picture as a device to move the story on

You’ll have created obscure and wonderful stories that you can retell at bedtime. You can also buy some postcards or print pictures off at home to illustrate these stories.

Learning resources

Take inspiration from some of the learning resources we’ve developed on our Schools Programme:

 
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The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN