By: Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology Happy Winter! We're excited to share a set of hands-on art-making activities with easy-to-find materials for the classroom and at home. Use these collections to explore new artists and stories while sparking learning and creativity. What would it be like to step inside a glittering diamond? In Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's MAKE IT: Inside a Diamond collection, design your own glittering mosaic of geometric shapes inspir...

By: Smithsonian Office of Educational TechnologyHere on the Smithsonian Learning Lab, you can find and make use of primary sources of all kinds – documents, objects, maps, letters, photographs, posters, and more. In this post, we've gathered ideas, ready-made tools, videos, and professional development webinars all about teaching with primary sources.We hope you'll find these resources useful for your classroom — and please let us know if you have any questions about...

By: Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology We've been hard at work building new features and fixes to enhance your experience using the Smithsonian Learning Lab, and we're excited to share our latest updates with you! Today’s upgrades include significant improvements in search functionality so that the most relevant results are given the highest priority and displayed first, making it easier to find what you need on the Learning Lab. Find information about these and other ...

By: Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology Are your students among the more than half a million middle and high schoolers who participate in National History Day (NHD) each year? We’re here to help! Educators across the Smithsonian have gathered a rich set of collections connected to this year’s theme – Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas – that can support students in brainstorming and researching topic ideas. In this post, we’ve divided these collections...

By: Emily Key and Adrián Aldaba, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino NEW! Guided Exhibition Tour and Activities for Lifelong Learners Smithsonian in collaboration with the USA TODAY Network present ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States Print Edition The Latino presence in the Americas has a long legacy, predating Spanish arrival in 1492, with interconnected histories from Indigenous, African, as well as European roots. These influences come aliv...