K - 8th Activity Guide from Smithsonian

This is so awesome! This week I saw that there is a new Smithsonian Education activity guide for kids available for download online.

Inspiration Nation is filled with inspiring stories, hands-on experiments, and art projects for students in K through 8th grade. The 40-page activity guide is bold, creative, and colorful, and portions of it are bilingual. 

It focuses on three main questions:

1.  “How have you been inspired?,” 
2. “How have others been inspired?,” 
3. and “How can inspiration change the world?”

This resources is part of their Learning Lab collection, so when you download it, you'll have the option of taking a tour. If you've never used a Learning Lab, it's pretty fascinating. There is a tool bar that lets you do/read a variety of things including:

• information about what you are seeing, i.e. a description and other details,
• additional resources or interactives that the artist has uploaded to supplement the piece,
• the option to add the piece to your own virtual collection (!),
• the ability to bookmark it as one of your favorites,
• the option to cite the source if you are doing research (it will create the citation for you in MLA, APA, or Chicago style),
• and the ability to flag the source if you are especially impressed or concerned about it.

Overall, what a fabulous resource to keep your kids engaged and learning this summer in a really fun way!

Click here to get your free print-friendly PDF of “Inspiration Nation.”