Fun with the family at Nashville’s Frist Art Museum

Looking for a place to escape crowded Broadway Street or the heat of Nashville? Look no further than the Frist Art Museum! With a surprisingly large children’s area it was a great place to spend a morning with the family.

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Crayola on Amazon

If you’ve been following along, you know that we were “assigned” to be in Nashville, Tennessee during the summer for a dance competition. When searching for ‘things to do with kids in Nashville’, it can be pretty tricky to find fun for the whole family. Luckily, the Frist Art Museum has an entire area dedicated to kids!

The Frist Art Museum

The convenient parking area is located directly behind the museum. You can also take the hop on/off trolley as well. (Read all about our experience on the trolley here!) If you are entering from the parking area, you will be greeted by the gigantic flower and insect sculptures seen above. It was such a fun and whimsical way to start what my kids anticipated to be a boring field trip. As usual, we arrived at opening to try and avoid the crowds of the afternoon. We were held in a small gallery area before the main museum opened. Remember, large bags and other bulky items must be stored before seeing the museum. For more information about current hours, location, etc. visit the museum’s website.

The museum is gorgeous with an open design and plenty of exhibits to explore. We were on a mission to find the children’s area-ArtQuest!

ArtQuest

Located on the upper level of the museum, ArtQuest is a place for kids to explore art in a hands-on way. There are several areas to explore and we spent our entire visit to the Frist Art Museum just in this exhibit! Pictured above is an area for little artists to sit and capture their own still life drawings. There is an entire library of art related books for all ages. Here are some of my favorites:

Meet Claude Monet is just one of a series of books introducing young children to famous artists. 

ABCs of Art is a gorgeous book featuring several famous paintings in a telling of the alphabet.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is the OG classic art book for kids! If you haven’t read it to your child add it to your reading list now!

Print Making

Before getting ready to travel to Nashville, I didn’t know much about the city other than it’s musical history. While prepping some homeschool lessons I found out about the rich print making history here! Hatch Show Print has been operating in the city since 1879 (you can even take a tour there!). The Frist Art Museum brings print making to the kids in their interactive activity. Children make their own design before getting the assistance of someone from the museum to make their prints.

The Frist Art Museum is smart and kind enough to have drying racks available in ArtQuest. They also provided us with a large folder to take home all of our kids’ masterpieces, this way nothing gets bent or folded!

Stop Motion Animation

Another highlight of the experience for my oldest was definitely the stop motion animation area. Here the museum provides several different types of toys for the kids to put in front of small green screens. The kids follow computer prompts and are able to make their own short animations!

More to do at the Frist Art Museum

Other areas to explore included a huge plexiglass window with dry erase markers, a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) activity and this super cool light board. If you turned the individual lights right or left they would change colors or even turn off altogether.

After spending some time in ArtQuest, the summer camps and other visitors began to wander through making it necessary to wait in lines to try the activities. Luckily my kids had done most everything they wanted (including play with some dress-up items they pretended to be too cool for). The rest of the museum would be lovely to explore if your kids are art-minded. Mine were ready to move on for the day and since the kids get free admission, I didn’t feel too badly about leaving quickly either.

I would highly recommend visiting the Frist if you’re traveling with young kids in Nashville. It was a great way to spend our morning in the city before heading off on a trolley tour. If you’re looking for more to do in the city with your kids, be sure to check out my post on the Science Adventure Center!