Kids Zooming into the new school year and disappointed that clubs, sports and activities are postponed for the foreseeable future now have another outlet for their after-school free time.
Smithsonian Associates is presenting Smithsonian Virtual Adventures, a series of live virtual learning experiences targeted for children in grades kindergarten to eleventh. Offered from September 29 to December 16, the lessons let kids explore various collections of the museum with the help of museum educators and instructors.
The youngest set will like thrice-weekly, one-hour interactions organized by the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, like “Bats, Bones, Spiders, Oh My!” and “Native American Artists.” Students in grades 2 through 5 can delve deeper in multi-week programs with two hours of live instruction about American democracy, art and science featuring virtual museum visits, games, conversations with experts and hands-on projects with sessions like “Global Safari” and “Timeline Travel.”
Tweens and teens in grades 6 through 9 can register for Smithsonian Masterclasses, studio courses with two hours of live online workshops like “Digital Comics Expanded” and “Super Art Fight” to develop specialized skills in 3D-explorable worlds, art, cartooning and performance combined with socializing and interacting opportunities with other students. Finally, history-minded students in grades 6 through 11 are invited to attend “Soldiers and Dioramas: Land and Sea Battles.” During the Saturday sessions, two hours of live history instruction is joined by two hours of live diorama construction, with the goal of creating a terrain board with troops in 1/72-scale to use while learning military strategies and the details behind critical wartime conflicts.
All Adventures begin at 3:30 p.m. ET except “Soldiers and Dioramas,” which is held on Saturdays starting at 10 a.m. Prices vary depending on session and membership status, and more information and online registration is available here.
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