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.]

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Zoo Themed Activities for Kids

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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