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Get out of the heat and enjoy a museum tour online!



Here are some terrific online museum tours – no travel required!

museums, tours, virtual, families

Going to a museum can be an amazing learning experience for the whole family, so take advantage of all the online tours and games that have become extremely popular now that families across the Hudson Valley are doing more “at home” activities.

With these websites, kids can engage with interactive experiences from some of the best museums all over the world. From finding their classic art twin on Google Arts & Culture to playing dinosaur trivia from the American Museum of Natural History, kids can find tons of hidden gems on this list.

Smithsonian Education Students

The Smithsonian Education Students site is filled with resources for kids who are interested in all sorts of topics like history, science, and cultures, or for kids who are looking for information on a specific subject for a school report. There are games, articles, experiments, a searchable resource library, and more to explore here. For kids who live close to Washington, D.C., or are soon to visit, there's also a ton of information on this site about the current exhibits and events of special interest to kids at the Smithsonian museums.

SMITHSONIAN EDUCATIONSTUDENTS offers art, science, and history questions and then gives kids the tools to explore them. If the solar system is the size of a fried egg, how big is our galaxy? Activities like Sizing up the Universe help kids make predictions about scale and checking them using math. How has the role of government during a national crisis changed since World War II? The Rationing During WWII activity lets kids use primary source materials to examine this and other big questions.

Getty.edu/gettygames

The Getty Museum's online site offers art information and educationaland fungames.  Developed by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, GETTY.EDU/GETTYGAMES brings fine art to gaming. Kids can solve jigsaw puzzles (from easy to very difficult), play card-matching games, race the clock to find differences between pieces of art, print out craft ideas, and learn about the Getty Museum. All games are educational and use images from pieces of art housed at the Getty Museum. A "learn about the art" button explains the artists' backgrounds, the art's origin, and other facts.

#MetKids

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the home of #MetKids, made for, with, and by kids and The Met! Whether you’re in New York City or across the globe, kids can explore the Met using an interactive map, watch behind-the-scenes videos that feature kids just like yours, and travel through more than 5,000 years of art in our time machine. Kids will also discover fun facts about works of art—from dragons to dancers, and from mummies to masks and more! A major plus: try out creative projects for at home. Be sure to stay up-to-date with the #MetKids blog. #MetKids has been inspired, tested, and approved by real kids ages 7–12. 

You can also try these kid-friendly virtual tours of these popular New York Museums:

American Museum of Natural History

We just love the big blue whale, but there are more than 2,000 other cool items in the the American Museum of Natural History’s collection.  From dinosaur skeletons to insects, and everything in between.

Children's Museum of the Arts

View more than 2,000 pieces of children’s art from around the world at the  Children's Museum of the Arts' collection

The Cloisters Museum and Gardens

Imagine that you and your kids are living back in time and wander through the Cloister’s magnificent monasteries.




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