Muve Education offers fun activities and exciting educational tours ‘on demand’ in all of the Fondazione’s museums, and including the principal temporary exhibitions, to enable visitors of all ages to enjoy the museums with the family in a natural and playful way, doing something fun and involving. The activities, led by specialised museum educators, for non-formal groups of up to a maximum of 10 people (min 1 max 4 adults, families with children and young people aged 5 to 14), can take place every day, during museum opening hours and at specific times, by independent online booking, subject to availability.
How to take part
The activities need to be booked online >>>
For last minute requests (activities scheduled within 7 days) please write to education@fmcvenezia.it or call +39 0412700370 (9.30-12.30 Mondays and Wednesdays),
subject to availability and advance payment by credit card, see info below
What and when:
– Workshop or in-depth activities, educational tours and routes
– Average duration 1.30 hours
– All year round
Target audience:
– families with children aged 5 to 14
How to book:
– online booking: click on the red ‘choose and book’ button ➝ tick the ‘families at the museum on-demand’ box ➝ click on the activity of your choice and follow the instructions
Prices and payment:
Information
ITINERARIES AND ACTIVITIES MUVE EDUCATION
– Telephone: +39 041 2700370 (hours: 9.30-12.30 Mondays and Wednesdays)
– Email education@fmcvenezia.it (from Monday to Friday, excluding holidays)
Activities can be booked online here: CHOOSE AND BOOK >>> except for LAST MINUTE requests which must be made, subject to availability, exclusively by telephone or e-mail.
1. The Lion Hunt
What better than a lion, the very symbol of Venice, to lead children on a more unusual trip around the Doge’s Palace. In this ‘lion hunt’ they must find various painted and sculpted depictions of the animal throughout the Palace, and “win” some items that, put together, will result in a surprise to take home. The tour starts from the courtyard and includes a visit to the most important rooms of the palace, including the Institutional Chambers and the Armoury, excluding the Prisons.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 5-10
2. The Palace with a tale to tell
This interactive visit is designed to enable participants to discover the history and artistic wealth of the Palace. Divided into stages, it uses games, hidden clues, stories and legends to engage the children, each of whom will have an activity book that they can take away with them and then use for follow-up work or at home. The activities and level of information all vary depending upon the age-level of the students.
The activity also includes a short visit to the Bridge of Sighs and the New Prisons.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 11-14
3. Understanding (and reconstructing) the Palace
This workshop is preceded by a visit to the Doge’s Palace that focuses in particular upon the fabric of the building and its history, upon the construction of an extraordinary architectural “appartus” which was not only the seat of government but also a “conveyor of messages” expressed in works of painting and sculpture. In the workshop, the students will, starting from an exploded-view diagram, create a real 3-D model of the Palace which they can then take home with them.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 8-14
4. A perfect Venetian crime. Find the culprit in the Doge’s Palace
A crime that really happened in the Doge’s Palace in the mid-fifteenth century acts as the leitmotif for a guided tour that winds its way through the most significant places in the Palace: from the courtyard to the Institutional Chambers – including those of the Senate, of the Maggior Consiglio – and on to the Bridge of Sighs and the New Prisons. The aim is to discover the numerous clues that bring to light an intricate affair that took place at the time of rule of Doge Francesco Foscari.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 9-13
The Art detective
The Museo Correr’s picture gallery – one of the richest and most important collections of Venetian painting from its origins to the early sixteenth century, which includes works by Lorenzo Veneziano, Bellini, Carpaccio, Cosmè Tura, Antonello da Messina and Lorenzo Lotto, presented in an evocative setting by Carlo Scarpa – becomes a ‘playground’. With the aid of an activity book, story-telling opens the way to the discovery of clues and the resolving of puzzles, all of which teach the children how to look at pictures and understand them.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 6-12
1. Canaletto, Venice and… its gondolas
In the monumental entrance hall on the ground floor, the Ca’ Rezzonico museum houses L’aura, one of the oldest gondolas in Venice (dated 1947). But how many stories and secrets can a gondola tell us? We will discover it together, then move on to the second floor of the museum, where we will observe the gondolas depicted in the famous views by Canaletto and other painters that allow us to “enter” the life of eighteenth-century Venice. But that’s not all: in the workshop, against a backdrop taken from Canaletto, after building it with our own hands, we will insert a “real” small 3D gondola that we can colour and reinterpret as we like!
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 7-14
2. How does Venice work?
Understanding how Venice is made, how it works and how it worked in the past is the first step to living it, respecting and enjoying it. Why is the urban fabric of the city, which is so dense, characterised by so many campi and corti (squares)? Why is there a wellhead in every square? Why do the chimneys have such bizarre shapes? How do the houses and palaces stand in the water? These and many other questions will be answered in a special itinerary in which Ca’ Rezzonico lends itself perfectly as example and at the same time as a perfect observation point. We will start from the museum to reach the nearby Campo San Barnaba where we will see the wellhead in the center. Then we’ ll enter again at Ca’ Rezzonico by the water entrance to the palace on the Grand Canal.It is that here our exploration starts in search of answers to the above questions, and searching for the answers will lead us all the way up… to the attic! Each experience will then be documented and summarised in the workshop, during which the participants will put together a really special board they can take home in a “smart” version.
Duration: 2 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 7-14
3. Easily Venice
A notebook of riddles provides the map for experiencing a sort of itinerant treasure hunt through the rooms of Ca’ Rezzonico, to discover the symbolic elements of Venice hidden among the furnishings, paintings and museum spaces. This fun inclusive activity with Easy-to-read and Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) texts, ends in the workshop with the creation of a lapbook dedicated to the most beautiful city in the world, enriched also with good practices to become more aware and respectful visitors of the environment, the artistic beauties and traditions of Venice.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, English
For families with children/young people aged 7-11
4. A fan from the fabulous Orient
Dragon, rhinoceros, dog, camel, but also pagodas and lotus flowers… what stories, symbols and curiosities can these subjects from the fabulous Orient tell? The activity includes a first part ‘hunting’ for these images in the museum, then continues in the classroom with the decoration of a Chinese fan inspired by what participants saw earlier, using stencils, glues and lots of colours.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 4-14
My art Gallery
After observing some selected Ca’ Pesaro masterpieces discovering their details and tracing their movements with ‘new eyes’, as in the case of Rodin’s “The Burghers of Calais”, the young participants will become true museologists by rearranging the works of ‘their’ museum through a diorama.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Russian
For families with children aged 5-14
Trans-form with music and colours
Direct observation of Kandinsky’s masterpiece “White Zig-Zags’, provides an excellent starting point for an active workshop in which the children after having familiarised themselves with geometric shapes, lines and colours, can try their hand at a true ‘collective’ artistic performance in which the individual shapes, transferred into the space of a long white sheet, become the protagonists of new figures and new stories.
The activity lends itself to deepening topological concepts relating to shapes, but also to an undestanding and knowledge of colours.
Duration: 2 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 5-14
Clay faces
Sculpture is one of the strengths of the Ca’ Pesaro collection: monumental works such as Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, or the intense waxworks by Medardo Rosso or the perfect and expressive marbles by Adolfo Wildt can offer a formidable impact with this art even for the youngest. After a “targeted” journey in the museum, in the workshop the children will be guided to shape their sculpture with clay: a face, their own self-portrait or a subject inspired by the experience they have just lived.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 5-10
1. The fashion game at Palazzo Mocenigo
How did people live in a Venetian palace in the old days? What clothes did the gentlemen and ladies wear on different occasions of the day? Who were the ‘muskers’ and how is it that perfumes were produced in Venice? The furnishings, paintings, accessories, clothes and raw materials – all there to be sniffed! – on display at Palazzo Mocenigo tell the story of fashions and customs in eighteenth-century Venice, in a mix of opulence, elegance and cosmetic fashions. The activity is rounded off with two life-size mannequins used to make clear the complex ritual that dressing up entailed, together with paper dolls that can be coloured in, cut out and ‘dressed up’ in the workshop.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 7-14
2. Hunt the Perfume
Having visited the part of the museum dedicated to the history of perfumes, to the raw materials and techniques used in their preparation, the children are involved in an activity that draws upon a number of senses. Using special teaching materials, they work in teams to explore the tactile and olfactory properties of natural raw materials – some in common use, some rather more rare. Gradually learning to identify these materials and their associations, they move step by step to the refined world of the fragrances whose complex combinations are at the origin of all perfumes.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 5-7
3. The World in a fabric
A workshop to discover the rich textile collections of the Museum of Palazzo Mocenigo with a practical part that can be experienced through a personalized kit with wool yarns and a small wooden loom, which will then remain to the young participants.
Engaging, inclusive and characterized by a constructive multicultural approach, the activity reveals how the ancient technique of weaving, between the necessities of life and creative development, unites all cultures.
Duration: 2 hours
Languages: Italian, French
For families with children aged 8-14
4. Perfumes unveiled
The workshop begins in the museum, where the students cover the history of perfumes and use multimedia equipment to chart the trade routes that linked different cultural and geographical areas; then, in the two rooms dedicated to the raw materials themselves, they get direct experience of their various odours. In the workshop, there is the opportunity to look in greater depth at classification of the different components that feature in all perfumes and to introduce the concept of “olfactory pyramid”. This leads on to to direct practical exercise: using the different essences, compounds and instruments of the trade, the students learn to construct their own personal perfume, which they can take away with them at the end of the session.
With the support of Mavive Spa
Duration: 1,30 hours
Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish
For families with children aged 7-14
A story of skill, sand and fire
The thousand-year craft of Venetian glass-making is recounted in a guided tour through the rooms of the museum, which house some of the famous works that made, and continue to make, the city’s glass legendary throughout the world – not only for the technical skill of its craftsmen but also for the creativity of the artists and designers who have drawn inspiration from the huge potential of glass as a material.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English
For families with children aged 5-14
A story of skill, sand and fire (with glassworking demonstration)
The thousand-year craft of Venetian glass-making is recounted in a guided tour through the rooms of the new museum, which house some of the famous works that made, and continue to make, the city’s glass legendary throughout the world – not only for the technical skill of its craftsmen but also for the creativity of the artists and designers who have drawn inspiration from the huge potential of glass as a material. The visit to the Glass museum combines a visual experience with the chance to actually touch some of the materials and instruments, gaining further insight into the “secrets” shared by the great master glassmakers. The itinerary is completed with a glassworking demonstration at the Abate Zanetti Glass School.
Duration: 2 hours.
Languages: Italian, English
For families with children aged 5-14
All the knots come to a head!
However complex, lace fabric is always based upon knots and weaves . But do we really know how to distinguish one from the other? Practical trial and experiment reveals just how common these knots and weaves are throughout our daily existence, and just how skilfully they can be used in arts and crafts.
After a visit to the more than two hundred rare and precious specimens of the museum, from the 16th to the 20th century, a fun game of recognition will follow with natural and artificial examples (bird’s nests, shoe laces, wicker hats and chairs, hair, sea knots …), with which the participants will learn to recognize the differences between ‘knots’ and ‘intertwining’.
The activity ends with the practical realization of a ‘basic’ weave with needle and wool thread on a particular support to be taken home.
Duration: 1,30 hours.
Languages: Italian, English, Spanish
For families with children aged 5-11
Puppets take Centre Stage
In one of its rooms, Casa Goldoni houses a precious puppet theatre with splendid original eighteenth-century puppets. In his own Mémoires, Goldoni mentions how, in this very house, his young self had played with such a puppet theatre – perhaps similar to this (but certainly less magnificent). After a short visit to the rooms with the puppet theatre and a lively account of some scenes from Goldoni’s plays (as depicted in the set pieces located within the museum), the workshop activity guides the children to construct cardboard puppets inspired by Goldoni’s characters.
Duration: 2 h
Language: Italian, English, French
For families with children aged 5-10