Masur Museum Runs Free Art Drop-Ins for Kids. Here's What the Saturday Session Looked Like.

The Carriage House Is Where MasurKIDS Lives

The main museum building is the 1929 Tudor-style house at 1400 S Grand. The kids' programs run out of the carriage house next to it. From the outside, you can tell you're in the right place: colorful handprints cover the windows from previous MasurKIDS sessions, names written in paint underneath each one.

I walked in on Saturday, July 25, with the kids at 1 PM. The studio was already set up and running.

The Scavenger Hunt Connects the Studio to the Gallery

At the table, there was a worksheet: nine circular images from the current exhibition, each with a checkbox. Kids were supposed to walk through the gallery upstairs, find those exact elements in the art pieces, and check them off. The final question at the bottom: "How many fans are in the exhibit?"

The current exhibition is Trismegistus: In the Garden, and it runs through August 8. It's built largely around collage fans as an art form. The scavenger hunt points kids toward the kind of thing they're about to make in the studio. That connection between gallery and activity is more intentional than most kids' programs bother to set up.

Making Collage Fans in the Art Studio

The activity was clear: cut images and shapes from old magazines, assemble them into a folded fan, and decorate. The tables had magazines, scissors, markers, glue sticks, and colored paper organized in supply caddies. Everything was already out when we arrived.

Staff helped with specific requests and kept the space running without being heavy-handed. The drop-in format meant families came and went at their own pace. Some stayed about 30 minutes. I stayed closer to two hours.

The studio cabinets have "Elements of Art" and "Principles of Design" charts posted on them, the same kind you'd see in a school classroom. Line, shape, color, form, value, space, texture on one side. Balance, unity, variety, proportion, emphasis, pattern, movement on the next. Whether kids read them or not, the vocabulary is there in the room.

MasurKIDS Drop-Ins Are Free and Need No Registration

No registration, no fee for the drop-ins. They happen throughout the year, tied to whatever exhibition is currently up. Dates are posted at masurmuseum.org. The museum has free admission, so visiting the galleries costs nothing. Summer art camps are a separate program with their own cost.

All ages are welcome, per the museum. Younger kids should have an adult with them in the studio, which is reasonable given scissors and glue are involved.

If you've been looking for a reason to go to the Masur Museum of Art, a MasurKIDS drop-in is a practical one. The gallery walk is part of the activity, which means you end up seeing the exhibition whether you planned to or not.

Monroe has more free things to do with kids than most people realize. The museum is one of the better options because you leave with something you made, not just a memory of watching something.