I admit when I first heard about the packs, I was not overly enthusiastic and wondered just how much fun any child would have with a mood-ometer and A4 paper they could scrunch up. But Miss Four proved the simpler things in life are frequently the best.
She loved getting out the mood-ometer at every artwork to discuss what she was seeing - "get out the circle thing, mum"became a constant refrain. We would then talk about what she did and did not like - "the man in that painting looks like a zombie" was one answer - and what she would change about an artwork or whether she thought she could make something like this.
Kids always want to touch objects - and not doing so is one the toughest things about being in an art gallery - so the mix and match, pat and scratch is perfect because they have something to do with their hands. Miss Four used it to tell me whether she thought an artwork was "hard" or "soft" and then looked for materials to match what was on the board.
Explorer pack activities can be used as they are or with games and art trails (there's an art detective one and an animal and places trail) now available to young visitors. In art gallery bingo, you receive an A4 sheet with details from nine paintings and have to find each of these in the ground floor New Zealand Collection. There are two game levels: one for 3-7 year-olds and a more challenging version for those aged 8 and older.
Anything you draw or make in the gallery can be taken home so we returned with Miss Four's story which explained her thoughts about the paintings she found. She declared Petrus van der Velden's Otira Gorge reminded her of a "rumbly bumpy" while the kids in Frances Hodgkins' Refugee Children were sad because there were no toys to play with and they did not have a sheet to tick off like her. I suspect they had other things on their minds.
She giggled at Theo Schoon's vitrified stoneware sculpture of a Kumara God and thought William A Sutton's Nor'wester in the cemetery - with gravestones in brown grass - was where dinosaur bones were buried. I was most surprised by her reaction to John Weeks' Precision Carbon Holder, which is a stylised painting of a piece of machinery. She started a lively conversation with a gallery guide about how she will one day invent a machine like this to extract the DNA from dinosaur bones.
Miss Four made a few people standing around us laugh when she declared Fibre Optic Broom #2, by Eddie Clemens, is hilarious because it lights up: "Imagine sweeping the floor with that, mum! It would be a real doodle in a poodle."
To get the most out of your visit, you can't be shy about talking aloud with your children, nor scared about their reactions. They may well get excited, and forget to use their indoor voices.
The Creative Learning Centre is where they can play a little more noisily. Inspired by Sean Kerr's What's It Doing installation of ideas machines activated as the kids move around, they make their own art, play with some handheld placards or simply look at what others are creating.
An hour to an hour and a half is probably quite long enough for under 7s, with a trip to the cafe as a reward for good behaviour (the child's and the parent's).
Need to know:
Auckland Art Gallery, corner of Kitchener and Wellesley Streets. Open daily, 10am-5pm with free gallery tours at 11.30am and 5pm. Check out Saturday afternoon Family Drop-ins, where you can create your own artwork, and Drop-in Drawing, which is aimed at adults but open to all (Sundays 2-3pm). Free (charges may apply to special exhibitions). aucklandartgallery.com
Special exhibition My Country: Contemporary Art from Black Australia (opens Friday, March 28) includes Kangaroo Crew, created by Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art Children's Art Centre. Developed with indigenous Australian artist Gordon Hookey, it explores the story of four kangaroos on a sacred hill with animated film, hands-on multimedia activities, and paintings by the artist. Children free, adults $15 weekends, $10 weekdays.
