Hofstra University Art Museum Exploration Hunt

By Julie Terrone

The Hofstra University Art Museum has created a fun outdoor activity for kids to explore the beautiful campus and seek out sculptures. There are two explorations to choose from:  Animal Sculptures or Shape Sculptures. Each child is provided a drawstring bag filled with a map, instruction/fact/craft kits, a sketch book and sometimes a plant and tree guide. My three kids, ages 10, 7 and 5 1/2 each got their own bag, and they quickly took out the map. Taking turns, we navigated around the campus to find the 5 animal sculptures on campus. (Read more after the jump).

For each sculpture there is a fact card about the animal and on the back about the artist who created the sculpture, and then there’s a clear envelope with a craft to create or instructions to sketch that animal.

EDUCATION FACTOR: This was a great, FREE activity to get the kids outside, reading a map, creating a craft and learning or reviewing facts about the animal sculptures around a beautiful university campus.

We suggest you do this on a comfortable weather day; unfortunately, we did it on a hot day in the late morning. Even though there was ample shade, it was just too hot and humid. Thank goodness the lobby of the campus playhouse was open and air conditioned; we were given permission  to sit in the lobby  to cool off and take a break from the heat while completing the animal craft for the sculpture located right in front of the playhouse.

TIP: Bring some water and a camera.

FOOD: There is a campus snack bar that was open to purchase cold drinks, snacks and Red Mango frozen yogurt. Parking was free by the admissions office for visitors to the campus.

http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/museum/index.html

Hofstra University Art Museum Exploration Hunt