Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smithsonian Education

Five educators standing on a beach in Alaska hold up crabs found during a Smithsonian Classroom Cultivation workshop. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III shakes hands with an educator at the 2025 Smithsonian National Education Summit.

2025 Smithsonian Education Impact Report Released

Newly released report shares insight into the programs and partnerships that link Smithsonian learning to communities, classrooms, and cultural institutions across the United States.

NMAAHC1.jpg

A Treasure Trove of Online Education Resources From the National Museum of African American History and Culture Spans Art, Culture, History and Science

Hundreds of PreK-12 teaching and learning resources that support developmentally appropriate skill-building and leverage both well-known and lesser-known stories in American history are freely available online for use in the classroom and at home

kids.jpg

13 Innovative Programs That Invite Early Learners to Explore the Smithsonian

These free regularly scheduled, drop-in programs across the Smithsonian introduce the youngest learners and their caregivers to a wide-range of playful, engaging, age-appropriate topics, including shapes and storytelling, animals and nature, and music and movement

Children Approaching the Smithsonian Building

Learning Alongside the Smithsonian for the Hundredth Day of School

As young students across the country celebrate this major milestone in the school year, the Smithsonian offers classroom connections to consider just how monumental 100 really is

A group of students wait in line at a Post Office. Each student has a stamped envelope they are handing to the postal worker behind the counter.

Field Trips at the National Postal Museum Deepen Student Learning and Connections

At a Smithsonian museum just off the National Mall, PreK-8th grade students engage in free field trip experiences that focus on storytelling through design, problem solving, and object-based learning

Young child experiences hands-on play experience with objects

Equitable Access to Quality Early Learning Experiences Matters

Early learning educators share what a future might look like, in which every child in the country has access to high-quality early learning experiences and the resulting long-lasting impacts.

Activities that give young children the opportunity to build meaningful, personal connections with animals can be the spark for a lifelong love of wildlife and cultivate a lasting conservation ethic.

Using Empathy for Animals to Engage Young Children in Early Engineering Education

How do you introduce engineering practices and skills to young learners? Smithsonian educators suggest it starts with empathy.

The National Zoo education team created an interactive, virtual field trip experience for 600 D.C. Public Schools kindergarteners to learn more about rainforest habitats, connecting to a children’s book they had read together. Here, the facilitator introduces students to a rainforest resident, the roseate spoonbill. (Smithsonian’s National Zoo)

Imaginations Run Wild with a Virtual Visit to the National Zoo

This spring, reading about the rainforest was reinforced by virtual field trips to the National Zoo, as D.C. Kindergarteners connected with a Zoo educator and a cast of Amazonian animals

When abstract concepts, such as fairness, race and differences, are explored with picture books, spoken about during play or introduced in activities like art-making, they are accessible to children and better understood. (Jaclyn Nash, National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Starting Conversations that Support Children Before Traumatic Events Happen

Several events over the last year have left caregivers and educators asking, “What do we tell children now?" But, it’s time to ask ourselves what we are going to say and do before the next time this happens. Our conversations with children need to shift from being reactive to being proactive.

Learning about a major news event as it transpires can be stressful for families to navigate and process together. (Getty Images)

Talking to Children After a Traumatic Event

As details about traumatic events unfold in the news, it is important for families to navigate these conversations with young children with care.

A boy adds a wish for the health of delivery workers during the 2020 pandemic. This paper wish tree is inspired by artist Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree for Washington, on view at the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden.

Using Museum Resources to Help Preserve Childhood in a Pandemic

Museum artifacts and artworks inspire early childhood educators to create hands-on experiences for learners and their families at home.

Categories
Archive