Ten wildlife gallery activities for your next visit

Visiting a wildlife Art Gallery or exhibition is a wonderful way to get your children out of the house and enjoying an activity they wouldn’t usually explore. It’s another wonderful way to learn about wildlife and their habitats too.

Here’s some activity suggestions for you during and after your wildlife gallery visit.

Wildlife gallery activities while your visit

1.   Talk to your child about the art gallery. Ask questions like what is an art gallery and why do people visit them?  Encourage your child to take their time looking at each picture/sculpture/image and to view the whole picture and not just the animal in the picture.

2.    Ask open-ended questions.  Asking questions will help children see, learn and understand more about each piece of artwork .e.g.

• What animal/s are in this picture?
• What habitat is shown behind the animal? Is this animal at the beach?
• Look at the picture again, is there something you didn’t see before? What can you see?
• What do you think the animal is thinking?
• Look at the picture, what is the mood of the painting?

3.    Get closer to the artworks. Discuss how the artist made the scales/features/fur look so real using different types of art techniques.

4.    Talk to the gallery staff (perhaps they are an artist themselves). Ask the staff member  about your favourite picture in the gallery and  if they have any behind the scenes information. Did the artist  draw from a photograph? From life? From memory? What is the artist like? See if your child would like to learn more about their favourite art in the gallery too.  

5.    Discuss the different types of wildlife art. Can you see paintings, collages, sculptures, photographs?

Wildlife gallery activities after your visit

6.   Create your own wildlife art at home. Trying different types of wildlife art can also teach children about wildlife. Clay lets children think about how to build the body of an animal, how it’s put together and what adaptations the animal has.

Drawing can help a child see and understand the small external features of wildlife like scales, fur, claws and whiskers. Remember you can try many types of wildlife art too. We’ve already explored drawing wildlife from an image, wildlife hand art, wildlife collage and wildlife photography.

7.    Learn about an artist. Look up one of the artists you learnt about from the gallery visit and find out more about their life and why they are passionate about creating wildlife art.

8.    Watch some wildlife art You Tube clips. It can be hard for children to understand how much time goes into creating such beautiful artworks. This video clip below starts slow but it does show you how this artist uses paints and shades to  build a rhino on paper.

9. Set up your own art gallery. Once your child (and you) have created your own wildlife art, why not display it in a room and invite family members to come and view your art exhibition.

10.    Start a wildlife art journal. Each day draw/sketch/collage animals you’ve seen in a wildlife art journal.  We documented our daily wildlife finds on a wildlife holiday last year.