Art Museum Sites

Some of the best educational art sites for kids are run by museums. These websites are all top-quality, easy-to-navigate, and updated often. You can trust each of them to be completely family-friendly and packed with historically accurate information. Another bonus is that they all contain beautiful digital reproductions of well-known art pieces.

• Smithsonian Institute Art Museum for Kids - Cappy the Giraffe hosts this fun journey of storytelling, art, and artists allowing kids to explore principles of art and American art history through creative activites.
• The Met for Kids - The Metropolitan Museum of Art's kids' page has fun questionnaires, guides, and suggested itineraries to help kids plan their trips to the museum. Even if you can't go in person, there are plenty of interactive art games to play.
• SmART Kids - From the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art, this site helps young art enthusiasts experience the art world through interactive learning activites. They can meet an artist and take a virtual tour of a studio, explore well-known works of art, and even become an "art detective."
• MOMA Interactives - The Museum of Modern Art presents this fun and very high-quality site for kids, letting them take their own virtual tour the museum. Kids can click on a piece of art and choose from several activities learning about the work of art itself as well as the artist who created it.
• NGA Kids - On The National Gallery of Art's kids' site, you'll find tons of super fun games and activities for budding artists to explore famous works of art and to create their own masterpieces through several types of visual art.

Sites from Artists and Art Teachers

All of the sites in this section were created by artists and art instructors for the sole purpose of inciting and fostering kids' interest in the arts. Most have loads of resources and projects for educators or students and, in most cases, both.

• AHC Project Page - This site, created by AHC (Artists Helping Children) is packed with fun art activities for kids including printable coloring pages, drawing lessons, and tons of craft projects.
• Art Junction - Created for both teachers and students, Art Junction features all kinds of exercises to get kids thinking like artists.
• Deep Space Sparkle - This nicely organized and easy-to-use site is run by an art teacher and is filled with lesson plans and activity ideas for teaching visual art to elementary school children. Everything is cross-referenced by age level and lesson subject.
• Kinder Art - Lots of lessons and activities for little artists to help them learn art appreciation and art history. There are a few online games and several at-home activity guides to help teachers and parents to engage their kids in fun hands-on lessons.
• Pintura, Art Detective - Kids will love this interactive detective story where they get to choose what happens next. All the while they'll be learning some valuable lessons about art history.

Famous Artists for Kids

The closest you'll get to truly understanding an artist is to emulate their work, and these sites let kids do just that. Each one provides either a virtual canvas where they'll get to make their own masterpiece, or instructions and resources for working in the style of famous artists at home.

• Paint Like Jackson Pollock - Fun for kids and adults, too, Jackson Pollock.org provides a fun interactive game where you can use your mouse to create Pollock-esque "paintings" while exploring the concept of abstract art.
• Picasso Head.com - This site is all about making your own "Picasso head" using a cool interactive editing tool. It's a great way to teach kids a little bit about Pablo Picasso and about surrealism in art.
• Famous Artist Crafts - The Crafty Classroom presents this great collection of art projects for young students. Each one is based on a particular famous artist and is designed to teach kids a bit about art history and technique as they create their own emulations at home.
• Famous Artist Worksheets - From Practical Pages, a very well-maintained and informative blog about homeschooling, comes a full collection of downloadable worksheets for middle and high school students about different famous artists throughout history. Each sheet fits nicely with an art history or art appreciation curriculum, is very high-quality, and is completely free. Most include sections for students to try their hand at re-creating famous works of art.

Exploring Other Forms of Art

"Art" is such a broad term that encompasses so many forms of creative and practical expression, and the key to art appreciation is to be exposed to as much and as many types of art as possible. While most of the previously listed sites focus on painting and similar visual art forms, these ones serve the purpose of helping kids to learn about some of the many other types of art out there.

• Architect Studio 3D - The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust created this site to inspire and educate youth about his work and about architecture in general. This site is geared more toward older kids and teens, and takes them through the design process from start to finish as they create their own house in a 3D studio.
• Music Exploratorium - This is a fantastic site to aid in teaching music appreciation and to foster a budding interest in the musical arts. Kids learn about the "science of music" through games and interactive lessons where they'll create, play, and listen as they explore how music works and the way it affects people.
• Artopia Dance - This site was set up to help middle school aged kids learn about dance theory and dance appreciation. Interactive lessons include one where students test their skills as a dance critic.
• Buster's Movie Maker - For the younger age group, PBSKids.org presents this fun virtual studio where kids can learn everything about the art of filmmaking as they create their very own movie with Buster, a character from the popular PBS cartoon "Arthur."

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