There’s nothing nicer than having your child occupied with their activities at the table while you’re sitting behind your laptop. It means you’re still together, but your child can entertain themselves with different fun tasks. We’ve listed various activities for you here.
Mauritshuis Colouring Pages
For children, we have colouring pages of paintings that are on view in the Mauritshuis. Print them out and colour them in.
- Age: 4+
- Independent activity
Imagination
The Girl with a Pearl Earring is a very beautiful, but also very mysterious painting. Who is this girl? What’s her name? Where was she when the picture was painted? What’s she looking at? What does she want to say? Where does she live? What does the rest of her look like? To answer these questions, you’ll need to use your imagination.
Task: Complete the painting
Picture what the rest of the painting of the Girl with a Pearl Earring could have looked like. Print the image of the girl and complete the painting with coloured pencils, felt tips, paint and of course your own imagination.
- Age: 4+
- Independent activity
Rembrandt’s Hats
Rembrandt made lots of paintings of people – we call these paintings portraits. He often painted people wearing unusual clothes and funny hats, like this one.
Task: Design a hat for Rembrandt
Alongside you can see a painting that Rembrandt made of himself. Print the image and design a new hat for Rembrandt.
- Age: 4+
- Independent activity
Self-Portrait
Rembrandt made more than 80 paintings and drawings of himself – to practice, but also to show other people how good he was at painting and drawing. This is one of the last self-portraits that he made.
Task: Make your own self-portrait.
Do you think you can do it? We’ve made the frame for you already.
Print out the frame, go and sit in front of the mirror and make a portrait of yourself. Enjoy – and good luck!
- Age: 4+
- Independent activity
Create an Exhibition
Hanging in the Mauritshuis are the most beautiful paintings of the 17th century. Sometimes we also borrow paintings that we can show to visitors for a short time. We hang these together in a large room so they look their best. We call this an exhibition. The exhibitions always look different. Take a look:
Task: Create an exhibition
Grab a large sheet of paper – that’s your museum wall. Print out the pictures that you can download below and cut out the most beautiful paintings that you want to use for your exhibition. You can also use other pictures from magazines or the newspaper, or you can draw your own paintings.
Lay them out on the large sheet of paper where you think they look best and stick them down. Maybe you want to give your wall a colour or to draw a special frame around your paintings. That’s how you turn it into a real exhibition.
Are you going to give your exhibition a title? You can write it at the top.
To make your exhibition even more real, instead of a sheet of paper you could turn a (shoe) box into a museum.
- Age: 4
- Independent activity
Still Life
A still life is a painting that has lots of things in it that can’t move. Like this example, painted by Balthasar van der Ast. What can you see in this painting?
Task: Make your own still life
Collect things from around the house to make your own still life with. Think about how everything will go together – we call that a composition. Is everything arranged next to each other? Or behind each other? What’s at the front and what’s at the back? What do you think looks best?
Have you found the best composition? Take a photo, or make a painting of it.
- Age: 7+
- Independent activity
