family activity guides
Free, printable, and engaging art guides for current and past exhibitions at Woodmere allow families to create their own art exploration experience, focused on the intersection of learning and artmaking.
Please note that particular works mentioned in guides may not be on view when you visit. High resolution images of works in our collection can be found on our Collection page.
Great American Heroes: The Art of Jerry Pinkney
Woodmere is using the art of children’s illustrator, Jerry Pinkney, to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who have worked for civil rights. Pinkney was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Germantown. He has illustrated over one hundred books and received many awards including a Caldecott Medal and several Coretta Scott King Awards, among others. Please use this booklet to learn about many people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Create your own portraits of these people using markers, colored pencils, crayons, or watercolors.
Don’t Feed the Art: Woodmere’s Animal Menagerie
Artists have been inspired by animals since the beginning of recorded history. Woodmere’s exhibition, Don’t Feed the Art, offers children of all ages many different ways to engage with art and enjoy animals through the eyes of artists. You will find: Looking questions that encourage children to develop their own ideas about what they see; Information about animals and artists to inspire curiosity; Art and writing activities to inspire creative expression and ideas. Have fun using pencils, markers, colored pencils, crayons, oil pastels, paint, scissors, aluminum foil, tape, or any art supplies you want to use.
Artists in Bloom: Portraits
Portraits are a representation of a person or animal. Looking at portraits helps us learn all sorts of things about the people and animals portrayed. We may discover where they are from, things they like to do, and imagine how they may feel. In this workbook, you will explore the different ways that artists create portraits. Artists use color, light and shadow, texture, and pattern to express a personality and mood. The features of a face or a particular pose will convey emotions. Clues such as clothing, objects, pets, and other people will tell a story about a person.
Artists in Bloom: Landscapes
A landscape is an image of the outside world. In this workbook, you will learn how artists convey their feelings about a particular place through color, light, shapes, textures, and space (what is near and what is in the distance). Explore paintings created long ago and others made now. Use your imagination to take a journey through the landscapes and think about: the sounds you would hear, what you might smell, animals you would see, and how you might feel in this landscape.
Artists in Bloom: Earth Day 2020
JOIN WOODMERE’S CELEBRATION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF EARTH DAY | April 22, 2020 marks the 50th year anniversary of Earth Day, the birth of the modern environmental movement. To celebrate, Woodmere invites you to explore one of the most beautiful landscape paintings in our collection, Edge of the Forest on the Susquehanna River (Early Morning), 1866, by Edmund Darch Lewis. An art activity is included as well. Please participate in Woodmere’s celebration by making a landscape picture of your own. (You can also work with a family member.) It can be a favorite place or a place you imagine.
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Abstraction: Games / Colors / Play
Featured in this workbook are paintings that focus on abstract art, where artists use colors, shapes, lines, textures, and patterns to show feelings, energy and movement, or a sense of place. Abstract art can be inspired by, but may not look like, something from real life. Discover how artists use color in endless ways. Some use colors to tell a playful story; some mix colors to create light and shadow; others use colors that create a mood or express a feeling.
