Se7en + 1 are Virtually Visiting Museums…

In an unprecedentally wet winter, I decided to a bit of a house sort and my children, were having none of that!!! I had to think of a way to make it fun and not seem like any work at all. I don’t know about your kids, but taking it from mine, they love to gather things, collect things, store things and even curate things. Turns out we are living in a museum. So we gathered together our collections and created a museum. Turns out it is a great way to spend a rainy day… or a number of rainy days!!!

I know you are thinking… we don’t have stuff lying around, I am sure that’s what you are thinking!!! But I tell you the truth… we have stuff all over the place. We had a whole ton of boxes, all the same size and we gathered our collections in one place… more or less. We went on hunts looking for just one thing, like postcards, I have always meant to put all our postcards up on a wall… so what happens is they get put here there and everywhere, while I think about putting them all up… well now we have a “postcard museum.” They aren’t sorted, but they are all in one place… and they provide lots of fun!!! Firstly, stuck on a wall we couldn’t read them, and secondly unsorted in one place in a box – provides hours of fun… sort by country, sort by who they are from… sort, sort and resort. Not just postcards: stones, fossils, coins, matchbox cars, keys, sea shells, tiny toys… bugs (quite glad to have those in one place), travel artefacts… the list is endless…

We live in a part of the world where museums are few and far between and while they do have one or two days “free admission days” a year, and Fridays are free for pensioners, we tend to visit one or two museums a year and though we would like to visit more, prices quickly add up. Well welcome to the internet, and easy access to heaps of fun museums for your children the world over. This is not the post where we show you our home grown museum… this is the post where we show you fabulous and fun museums to explore online.

Natural History Museums

The first time we visited the Natural History Museum in London… we went for the afternoon and three hours later we were still exploring the bug section – it was an eye opener really. We were used to museums that you amble through in a morning and then head out for a snack… it was a whole new thing to have things to touch and interact with – the whole place was just packed with brilliant things to see and do and learn about – time stood still while we explored.

Museums to Visit Online:

• The Natural History Museum: This is a great site for kids to explore, they can find out about researchers and what they do, they can explore fossils and view things in the museum. There are also heaps of fun printables… have a browse through the educational section for downloads, printable fact cards, things to colour and fill in, while you are exploring in real life and just as useful if you are visiting virtually. Here’s an example of the printables you can download for a visit to a dino-scientist.
• American Museum of Natural History: They have a special website for kids, called Ology. There are so many fab things to do on that site, I cannot list all the fun there… everyday it is changing and happening… just fabulous!!!

Things to do during your virtual visit:

• Creating a dinosaur display, with your dinosaur collection.
• Make your own fossils by pushing shells into plasticene.
• Create a nature journal of the animals you spot in your virtual travels.
• Make a bug collection.
• Plant some beans and watch them grow.
• Grow a windowsill garden.

Cultural History Museums

Museums to Visit Online:

• The Smithsonian: This site has anything and everything… if you weren’t curious before you will be after visiting this site… I got totally lost in the kids area of this site and never even entered the educators section.
• The British Museum: This is such a great place to visit in real life, it is just as fab for an afternoon of exploring from home. Teachers can take a look at the teacher brochure, it’s a PDF with lots of links to interesting on-line resources. To be honest we spent a lot of time avoiding museum guards, in museum run and every time we went past an artefact we learnt all about it.
• Show ME: Has dozens of great things to do from Museums all around the UK, dozens. Seriously there is so much cool over here that I am not going to say anything!!!

Things to do during your virtual visit:

• Coins… look for coins around the house – you would be amazed at what you find when you examine them closely.
• Stamp Collections… especially now at Christmas time, look at your envelopes and see if you can spot where all your stamps are from.
• Postcard Collections… we have a great collection of postcards from friends around the world… mostly gathered from postcard swaps we have been part of… they are now all inane place in a box!!!
• Have a Round the World Feast.
• Take a peak at Schools Around the World.
• Dress up, face paint flags, anything around the world.
• Gather pamphlets from your local info station… and plot and plan local historical sites that you wold like to visit.

Science Museums

Museums to Visit Online:

• The Exploratorium: There are so many cool things to do and see on this site… seriously cool… dissection, microscopes, space… even skateboard science. This is one site where you really feel like you have visited the museum and you won’t be leaving anytime soon!!!
• The Science Museum: Possibly the most fun in a museum, happened here… head straight over there, if you are looking for heaps of school topics, that don’t feel like school at all or just heaps of fun and games.

Things to do during your virtual visit:

• Launch some Rockets.
• Build a Terrarium.
• Rainy Day Science.
• Observe Some WildLife.
• Build a Weather Station.

Art Gallery

Museums to Visit Online:

• The Tate… This is a fabulous spot for children, and the young at heart, to play, learn, do and create online.
• Museum of Modern Art: There is the online collection to explore, an explorer game to play and their learner site is fab.
• NGA – The National Gallery of Art… Art Zone, so much creative loveliness that I don’t have to say anything!!!

Things to do during your virtual visit:
Learn About a Great Artist, draw of course, create a space on a wall, even a door is good enough and create a gallery…

• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Marc Chagall
• Salvidor Dali
• Escher
• Picasso or Picasso Potraits.
• Monet

This project was going to be a Project a Day Project… but it grew so big so fast, what with creating, curating and exploring online… it literally exploded and we could never have blogged it fast enough!!! Turns out like like most of our readers I am sure, we are living in a museum… really!!! If you have a museum you love to visit online, let us know… leave a comment and tell us about it.