Check out the Smithsonian’s Virtual Tours

While we’re all at home at the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, galleries and the National Zoo are closed, there are still plenty of options for taking in some learning from home.

Smithsonian magazine has a list of virtual tours and activities you can take part in from their 19 member sites. Take a stroll through the National Portrait Gallery, learn more about Abraham Lincoln with an exhibit from the National Museum of American History, learn about the oceans with the National Museum of Natural History and more.

Or you can download coloring pages and color some of the exhibits, listen to podcasts from the Air and Space Museum (among other places) or explore Open Access, where you can search, download and use more than two million images from the Smithsonian collections. That should keep your kids in collage materials for a while.

This just scratches the surface of what’s available; head over to the Smithsonian website to check it all out.

[Photo: Smithsonian magazine.]

Next Plan Idea:

Zoo Themed Activities for Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply