Cleveland Museum of Art

In November, we toured the Cleveland Museum of Art. I had heard that the museum has specific educational programs, and I thought that it would be great to take advantage of this as a home schooling group. We chose to take a tour of "Line, Shape and Color" through the museum, led by a docent.

As it turned out, our "docent" was a soft-spoken, older woman who had never heard of home schooling and spent the first 15 minutes of our 1 hour tour asking us parents questions about how we teach our children and "What do they know?" Although she seemed very kind and good-natured, she was extremely quiet and wasn't very good at getting the children's attention. She led the group to one room, one gallery, and went around the room asking the children extremely basic, pre-school level questions about each painting. We spent the entire hour in that one room. I know I was a bit bored, but I have to laud our children for being very well-behaved and respectful of this woman. There was very little chatting and wandering among the whole group. When she apologized at the end for spending so much time in one room and asked if we wanted her to lead us somewhere else, I respectfully declined, but we were all ready to spend some time exploring on our own.

I found the museum to be easily accessible with a stroller, and interestingly laid out. We were awed at the number of famous pieces of artwork in the permanent collection. I personally stopped a few children in our group to point out Picasso's "Harlequin with Violin" as they attempted to hurry past. The younger children basically were just able to see something pretty, but many of the older children could identify with the talent and effort involved in creating the artwork. The history of art was also readily apparent, as well as the relevance of artwork as historical evidence. There is a lot to see there. To really enjoy and appreciate all of it, I would recommend more than one visit.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and plan to return.

There is a gift shop with so many art and art-related items, I can't begin to describe it. There is also a cafe with very tasty gourmet-style foods. Although it's not bargain-priced, they do have an advantage in being the only place there to eat, so it could have been much more expensive. My sandwich cost around $6.oo and it was very good.
Although the museum's permanent collection is free, parking is not. I believe it cost me around $7.00 to park there, but don't quote me.