Origami crafts: wearable samurai hat out of newspaper or some good luck paper cranes. Extra activity: see how small you can make these origami creations? Can you make one out of a Starburst wrapper, for example?
Here’s my 3rd installment of themed books, activities and snacks to help you organize your Social Distancing days. How are you holding up? It’s just the beginning for me and I’m pretty nervous about this increased social isolation. I hope you and your family are well.
I had this Museum Nerd fantasy that all the museums would stay open, that most people would avoid going, and so I could have the museum all to myself! #WishfulThinking But, anyway, here are some fine arts ideas for you and your family!!
Curriculum Connection
If you’ve never matched up your history curriculum with objects in a museum, maybe take some of your time at home to search the collections of the MFA or other institutions to find objects that bring to life the time periods and cultures you study. The MFA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and others have truly encyclopedic collections of the arts that you can search and view online.
Field Trips
The deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park has closed their museum but their sculpture park is free and open to the public. Take a beautiful walk, but maintain social distancing!
“Mo Willems invites YOU into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Learners worldwide can draw, doodle and explore new ways of writing by visiting Mo’s studio virtually once a day for the next few weeks. Grab some paper and pencils, pens, or crayons and join Mo to explore ways of writing and making together.
“New episodes will be posted each weekday at 1:00 p.m. ET and then remain online to be streamed afterwards. Check back each weekday for new LUNCH DOODLES!”
One of my favorite art historians of all time is Sister Wendy Beckett. She has the most amazing, humanist analysis of fine art. She loves and understands humanity and expresses it exquisitely in her series on Fine Arts. Check out this segment from Sister Wendy’s PBS series on Rothko and Warhol – and then click around to see the other segments available for free on YouTube.
And if you want to know more about Sister Wendy, watch this interview with Bill Moyers, It’s broken into 6 parts.
All our weekly activities are officially cancelled. I’m betting yours are too. Are you now totally filled with dread at the prospect of having to stay cooped up at home separated from your social circle? I am. I need my external structure and regular access to people in order to stay well.
So to calm my nerves, I’m going to dust off a DIY summer camp guide I wrote in 2013 when I ran a totally different blog in Cambridge. We were broke back then too and since summer camp was off the table I wrote up a plan of themed activities, crafts, books and snacks for 10 weeks.
I’m going to share them with you here to help you survive at home while we all get through this period of social distancing. Maybe some structure to your days at home with your kids will help you too. In general this guide was originally written for younger elementary aged kids, but I’ll try to add things for people of all ages.
For each theme, I’ll write a single post and link them here as I write them. Here are the topics:
My original guide included several field trips for every week. I will only include out-of-the-home activities if they take you places where you won’t be in close contact with other people.
Broke Boston Homeschooling 