Hands ON! Nevada Museum of Art

This past weekend my family and I headed to the Nevada Museum of Art to check out their monthly Hands ON! Second Saturdays program. The Hands ON! program is hosted by the Nevada Museum of Art and is family friendly.  We had never been before so I was excited to see if it was something we would enjoy especially since it is offered on the second Saturday each month and also because admission is free!

What is it?

Hands ON! Is at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno (midtown area).  It is the second Saturday (hence the name) of each month and is free admission to the public.  They host a day of activities that include art projects, storytime, art investigators, and a tour.  Activities like storytime have more than one scheduled time throughout the day. They also have a new theme for each monthly Hands ON event!

Our Hands ON! Experience

The day we went was transportation themed so the first craft room included creating collage cars out of cardboard cut outs, putting them together and then coloring them.  The kids needed help assembling the cars, but enjoyed coloring them. The second room was setup to make to make accordion books where the kids got to glue on the cover pages and use stamps to decorate the books. They could choose from an assortment of transportation vehicle stamps and ink colors.  Our final stop was for storytime. At this point Brendal and dad headed to the car and Connor and I stayed for the storytime.

The Nevada Museum of Art building itself is beautiful!  They have exhibits and tours that they offer that are geared more towards adults, but I was able to sneak in some viewing before we left. The fourth floor has a terrace where you can enjoy looking over Reno.  Connor definitely loved being outside and viewing the city and mountains.

Suggested Age

The Hands ON! program is free to everyone and definitely geared towards families.  Connor is 4 (almost 5) and enjoyed the art projects and story time. Whereas Brendal who is only 2, made it through half of the activities and ended up hanging out in the car with dad during storytime because she had reached her limit. Because of this, I do feel like she was a little young and I would recommend waiting until at least the age of 3 for this. I also think older kids, especially those who like arts and crafts would enjoy the Hands ON! program.

NNM Recommended

Would I return again? Yes! I am always on the hunt for family friendly events and loved that this was free for us to attend.  It was an easy way for us to spend the morning and all in all we were there for about an hour total. We arrived right when they opened at 10am and made sure we arrived close enough to the scheduled storytime.  Most of the crafts go all day but storytime is only scheduled at 2 specific times so I do recommend looking over the posted schedule on their events page and planning to go at a time that they have storytime so you can get the full benefit of the free admission.  

What about you have you been to the Hands ON! Second Saturday at the Nevada Museum of Art? Looking for other indoor activities check out our indoor activities guide!