Getting the Most From Your Visit

Talk with Fallingwater staff. Plan a focus for your visit. When booking your tour, let staff know about special needs. Find out where you should meet staff when you arrive at Fallingwater.

Things You Can Do To Help Make Your Museum Visit More Enjoyable

  • Share the map/parking information with your bus driver. Ask staff for a map or directions to Fallingwater and information about parking.
  • Prepare your students for their visit. Talk with them about their expectations. Make a list of things they would like to find out during their visit. Discuss unfamiliar words that relate to your visit. Explain museum manners. Encourage students to participate while at Fallingwater, to ask questions. As Frank Oppenheimer, founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco said, “No one ever flunks a museum.”
  • Ask for resources to help you prepare your students. Check out our website and book selections. Staff may be able tp visit your classroom prior to a visit.
  • Check out a book from the library that will give you hints on how to prepare students for a museum visit. Many contain activities to help sharpen students’ perceptual skills and suggestions for post-visit activities.
  • Check out a book that describes an imaginary museum visit. Here are just a few examples of these kinds of books:
    • Where's the Me in Museum: Going to Museums With Children
      by Milde Waterfall and Sarah Grusin
    • Teach the Mind, Touch the Spirit: A Guide to Focused Field Trips
      by Helen H. Voris and Carolyn P. Blackmon
    • From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
      by E.L. Konigsburg
    • How to Take Your Grandmother to the Museum
      by Lois Wyse, Molly Rose Goldman, and Marie-Louise Gay
  • Have children wear nametags (first-name only), if possible. This helps guides and museum staff to interact more effectively with students.
  • Find out what you can/can’t bring. Leave backpacks, book-bags, lunch-bags, food and drink on the bus. If you will be drawing or writing inside the house, please use pencils only, no ink or liquid media.
  • Arrive promptly for your visit. Bring Fallingwater’s phone number with you the day of your tour. We know that “stuff happens”! Call if you are lost, experiencing bad weather, the bus has a flat tire, etc.  This will help us adjust the tour accordingly, so that you can stay on your schedule.