Annemarie Gardens Sculpture Park and Arts Center
Activities in Historic Southern Maryland For Children
Jun 30, 2009
Located in historic Solomons, Maryland, Annmarie Gardens is an educational and fun day trip for the whole family. The gallery not only showcases local artists and exhibits on loan from other institutions such as the Smithsonian, but also offers toddler activities and a nature trail.
Art, Nature and Toddlers
The gallery is combined with a unique 30-acre outdoor sculpture garden and walking trail to experience how nature and art communicate to the observer. Guided tours and self-interpretation pamphlets are available, as well as materials for several different scavenger hunts geared at different age groups.
For the younger visitors, Annemarie provides a toddler tour pamphlet giving parents several activities to engage their children with at each sculpture. Part of the quarter-mile long trail is also a “Born Learning Trail,” a discovery walk with opportunities to learn about the alphabet, colors and even numbers.
For older kids, a sculpture scavenger hunt will have them looking for dragonflies, frogs and faces carved into dead tree stumps. Parents and children both will enjoy participating in the artwork scavenger hunt by searching for snippets of famous paintings amongst the knots of the trees.
Wild Things
At a modest price of $3.00 per adult and $2.00 for children between five and twelve, the art gallery is a modern, bright space that houses changing displays. At the time of this publication, Annemarie Gardens was hosting the Wild Things exhibit. The individual pieces of art are interpretations of animals, both familiar and extinct, created from a variety of different mediums representative of the diversity of life on Earth.
Some artists included in the display are invited to bring their supplies, allowing visitors a live demonstration in the creation of these exquisite works of art. Although some pieces were traditional paintings and sculptures, the exhibit also included distinctive art forms such as a computer animation display and projection art.
Additionally, a collection of needlepoint work created by British sailors in the 19th century was also on display at the time and the collector, an expert in the field of “Woolies,” these very special works of art, was on hand to answer questions from visitors.
Activities for kids were provided throughout the gallery including footprint art, where ink, rollers and markers were available to create a fanciful shoe print, a postcard-making craft, and several others.
Visiting Annemarie Gardens
The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Check their website for current exhibits and visiting artists. Other activities are also available online for kids such as a Safari scavenger hunt which includes a variety of other locations in southern Maryland – a great educational game for kids who live locally.
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