Arts Resources for Families Stuck at Home

As school districts, community centers, libraries, and museums across the country close their doors in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, many parents and guardians are now faced with the challenge of finding ways to engage and nurture the children in their care, full time and largely from home. To that end, CAPE has begun collecting arts resources for families stuck at home. Most of these resources do require internet access, but many of those will work on cell phones and wifi-enabled tablets. (Click here to learn more about Comcast’s efforts to provide internet access to families during the pandemic)

If you find any creative ideas to add to our list of arts resources for families stuck at home, please leave them in the comments and we’ll update the list as often as possible. Please also check out our new CAPE Online Learning Hub, which is packed with interesting videos on topics ranging from music instruction and math to yarn art and cooking, all made by our CAPE teachers and teaching artists, or download some pages from SPACES, a coloring book of art by CAPE teaching artists.

Digital Learning and Activities

• The Exploratorium in San Francisco, founded by Frank Oppenheimer, has a large collection of online learning activities, lessons, and printables
• BBC’s cbeebies site includes learning games, videos, and more, including many en Español
• BBC’s School Radio offers dance, music, and other content in a variety of formats. The BBC also has podcasts for kids
• Common Sense Media also has a list of some excellent podcasts for children that are entertaining and informative
• #ColorOurCollections has hundreds of images from international museums that you can print and color at home

Interactive Art Tools

• Draw beautiful abstract pieces at Weave Silk
• Interact with an array of coded virtual spaces at codedoodle.es
• Play with lines, shapes, and time at bomomo

Digital Collections & Interactive Exhibitions

Many art museums around the world now offer digital access to their collections and even digital tours of their halls.

• Rogers Park’s Mile of Murals is viewable online– take a tour of the neighborhood!
• Nicholas Galanin, Carry a Song/Disrupt an Anthem, Peter Blum Gallery, New York
• The Art Institute of Chicago digital collection
• The Art Institute of Chicago’s Virtual Visit, for multimedia resources, including videos and interactive features about works of art
• The Art Institute of Chicago’s JourneyMaker, a tool that allows families to explore the collection together, create custom ‘journeys’ through the collection, and engage in activities inspired by works of art. It was designed for in-museum use but can be used at home for imagined adventures to the museum from home.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art digital collection
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris digital collection, online exhibition, and walking tour, via Google’s Arts and Culture tool
• National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea online exhibitions, digital collection, and walking tours, via Google’s Arts and Culture tool
• Travel and Leisure has a list of additional art museums around the world that you can access from home in the coming weeks
• And Google’s incredible and expansive Arts and Culture tool will keep you busy for hours

Live and Interactive Streams

Many music organizations are beginning to launch live streams of their scheduled performances. If you know of more, send them our way!

• Seattle Symphony (new dates coming soon)
• The Metropolitan Opera (beginning March 17, 2020)
• Mo Willems, beloved children’s author and Artist in Residence at the Kennedy Center, is hosting Lunch Doodles every weekday at 1pm EST
• NPR compiled a great list of upcoming live concerts featuring musicians form many genres