#MetKids: Robust Resource for Families and Schools

It is hard, I will reveal my prejudice, not to consider the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC the ultimate art museum. It is the largest museum in the United States and one of the most visited in the world. There are more than 2 million pieces in their collection. In September, 2015 they launched a new digital web-based product, #MetKids. Come with me as I explore this new resource designed for kids between 7 and 12 years old.

Photo Credit: Arad, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Here is the relatively simple interface for what promises to be a broad and deep offering of treats for families.

Explore the Map
The map is a rough facsimile of the floor plan of the museum. We are reminded that in this space we have access to history and objects from over 5000 years. This reminds me very much of Where's Waldo and a treasure hunt.

We are prompted to look for the yellow and red dots/arrows to find what we want to explore. An enlarged version (see + and -at bottom right) make this map much more accessible.

The Asian collection...my favorite destination

When I click on the red dot over the elephant, I learn that it is Ganesha and see a beautiful reproduction of an ivory sculpture of this Hindu god. Each object has numerous categories of information (varying by object); for Ganesha it is discover with basic information about the object. Imagine poses a hypothetical question and Create is a prompt to make some kind of replica.

Back to the big map and I clicked on this Egyptian temple.

This video selection is part of the numerous options to explore and learn about this object/building. Below a 9 year old is asking the Registrar of the museum how objects get into the museum.

                 

Hop In the Time Machine
The second section of activities is the Time Machine.
Here the player get to select a time period, geographic location and concept to explore with an object from their collection.

When I selected the Ancient World, Middle East and Magic and Mystery, I was alerted to push the start button at the bottom right and my time journey took me to a 4000 year old bronze bust. An audio clip suggests that this may be a portrait of a specific important person.

A search for 19th century, Australia and Oceania and Inventions took me to this fascinating navigational chart from the Marshall Islands. It is easy to see how these objects can be used in the classroom to teach virtually every subject.

Videos
As the final menu category of activities, this leads to a treasure trove of options. The Create checkbox connects to a collection of 10 videos and instructions for art projects. This video documents two girls making a collage and at the end includes a collage from the collection for additional inspiration. Below the video are print instructions as well.

Q&A includes videos of kids asking curators questions; the one I watched was about doodling. In this video the curator of Medieval Art is showing examples of doodles from a 12th century manuscript. The Made by Kids check box includes a variety of stop motion animations inspired by specific artwork.

Here's a kid-made animated video inspired by jewelry in a Renaissance portrait. These fun and delightfully sopisticated productions are products of the Met's Animation Lab.

This short video about Animation Lab will inspire others to replicate this kind of program in their school/museum. How wonderful for these kids to get this kind of experience with access to these tools and this kind of assistance.

The #MetKids blog is the venue for adding new topical content on a regular basis. #MetKids is a fabulous resource for families, schools and arts educators. I learned a lot on my exploration of this resource and I hope you will spend time with the site as well. That may be the only down side, taking the time to really understand what's available in this robust resource.

Enjoy.