Eights Exhibits Kids Will Love at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y.

One of the oldest- and largest- art museums in America, the Brooklyn Museum, located in the heart of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, is home to over 500,000 objects of art from around the world and spanning over 5,000 years of history. The museum originally began as the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library in the 1820s, joined the Brooklyn Lyceum in the 1840s to form the Brooklyn Institute before deciding to establish itself as a permanent fine art museum in 1846. The first wing of the museum officially opened to the public in 1897, with many additions and renovations throughout the 20th century and early 2000s.

Today, the 550,000+ square foot complex, spread over five acres, welcomes over half a million visitors each year. The museum has daily programs and events, many of which are geared towards families and children.

Travel Tips:

Eight Exhibits Children Will Enjoy:

1. Gold in all its forms in the Solid Gold exhibit (separate, timed entry tickets required and included in admission fees). Check out the Path to Nine art installation of 999 gold leaf covered bars, held together by stainless steel rods to form a wall, and the various costumes and jewelry, dating back centuries, from all over the world. Be sure to grab a Hunting for Treasure for a scavenger hunt to complete and earn a discount in the Museum Shop. Fifth Floor. Note the special exhibit runs through early July 2025
2. Walking through the Visible Storage, where guests can go inside the storage rooms and see over 1,500 works of art in the museum’s collection that are being stored in between exhibitions. Kids will especially like seeing some of the decorative arts and furniture, protected by glass encasements but at eye level, and reading the booklets that share the history of each piece. Fifth Floor.
3.  Replica “period rooms”, part of the museum’s collection of 23 complete rooms, some of which date back to the seventeenth century. The museum currently displays a 1930s Park Avenue study, an 1880s reception room, and a gothic revival library, all of which have authentic American and European decorative arts. Note: Many of the period rooms are currently closed through winter 2025, as the museum is deciding how best to accurately display these rooms in the future to express the authentic styles of the eras and locations.  Fourth Floor.
4. Arts of Asia which has paintings, prints, sculptures, ceramic, and lacquerware from Japan, Korea, China, and the Himalayas dating back to the Neolithic Era. Kids will especially enjoy the display of masks. Second Floor

5. The Dinner Party, a 1970s American feminine art installation with 39 place settings, symbolic of 39 famous feminists, on a massive triangle table. Children might recognize names such as Susan B. Anthony, Hatshepsut, Emily Dickinson, Sacajawea, and Jane Austen. Take note of the various symbols on the plates, chalices, and utensils, and the names of almost a thousand women inscribed on the tile floor.  Fourth Floor
6. The Beaux-Art Court, home to the Four Artists, Four Walls exhibit featuring four large scale abstract artworks by artists with Brooklyn roots. There are tons of soft chairs to sit and observe the art work from various angles and kids of all ages will enjoy the chance to sit back and take in the artwork (and the natural light streaming in from the skylights.) Third Floor. Note: the exhibit is on display through early July 2025.
7. The Ancient Egyptian Artwork and Funerary Gallery, home to over 1,200 works of arts including paintings, pottery, statutes, and mummies. The Brooklyn Museum has one of the largest collections of Egyptian art in the world. The adjacent Mummy Chamber displays decorated coffins, wall reliefs from tombs, a 20+ foot long Book of the dead scroll, and several mummies. Be sure to pay respect when learning about the human remains that lay in repose in this exhibit. Third Floor
8. The Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden, which features over three dozen works of art made of marble, limestone, granite, cast terracotta, mainly from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Check out the replica Statue of Liberty.  First Floor and outdoors.

Looking for other adventures in Brooklyn? Check out our full Brooklyn City Guide here and our feature of the NY Transit Museum here. And check out our full index of Manhattan posts here. 

Disclosure: We were given a media pass to explore the museum; all opinions expressed are my own.