7 Virtual Activities To Do With Your Kids Over Winter Break

Whether your kids are currently engaging in in-person learning or going to school remotely, winter break is just around the corner. With that in mind, you are probably going to need to have a few virtual activities on hand to keep them busy.

7 virtual activities you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home

Whether your kids would rather visit the San Diego Zoo or walk the Great Wall of China, there should be something on this list to keep everyone entertained.

1. Visit the San Diego Zoo virtually.

If your child is a fan of animals, there’s no better place to virtually-visit than the San Diego Zoo. The zoo’s Kids’ Zone features a variety of animal cams for some of its most popular residents, including the apes, giraffes, koalas, and pandas.

Plus, in addition to being able to take a sneak-peek at the animals’ daily lives, the site hosts quite a few educational videos, supplemental activities like printable coloring pages or word searches, and age-appropriate computer games.

2. Check out a virtual tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is one of Washington DC’s premier exhibitions. Although it remains closed as part of an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, there’s no reason why you can’t spend some time enjoying all the educational content that it has to offer.

The museum’s robust virtual tour page allows visitors to take a room-by-room journey through all of its exhibits on either a desktop or mobile device. However, as an added bonus the museum’s curators have also granted access to past exhibits as well as a selection of narrated tours.

3. Take a virtual tour of the White House.

No matter how you feel about the current state of politics in this country, there’s no denying that the White House is an impressive building. The 10-minute virtual tour is narrated by Former-President Barack Obama, who gives insight into backstage details about some of the building’s most famous rooms, including the Oval Office and the Situation Room.

However, in addition to the audio tour, the corresponding video is panoramic, meaning that you get a 360-degree view of one of the United States’ most premier landmarks.

4. Explore Bright Farms remotely.

Bright Farms, which is an indoor food growing company based out of Irvington, NY, aims to show kids how food gets from the greenhouse to the grocery store with its virtual tour. The farm’s head grower, Charlie, takes kids on an interactive tour of the indoor growing process from start to finish.

As an added bonus, there is a fun quiz at the end of the film that lets your children test out their new wealth of knowledge.

5. Walk the Great Wall of China.

Next, consider taking a trip to the Great Wall of China. Here, you’re given two options for how you would like to experience one of the seven New Wonders of the World.

On the one hand, the free option offers four different scenes choose from and you can use the arrow keys to obtain a panoramic view of your surroundings.

However, on the other, if you’re willing to pay the $8 entrance fee, you can gain access to 14 scenes in higher-definition resolution. That said, no matter which option you choose, you’re guaranteed to have an experience that you’ll remember for the long-haul.

6. Explore virtual activities at the International Space Station.

If your child dreams of being an astronaut, there’s no better activity for them to check out than touring NASA’s International Space Station. NASA currently hosts four different videos of station tours on its website. They include Zarya and Zveda, Cupola and Leonardo, Harmony, Tranquility, and Unity, and Destiny, Columbus, and Kibo.

In addition, if you’re looking for more NASA-related content, you can also take a tour of their Glenn Research Center. Here, you can explore what it feels like to be an astronaut by touring the Space Environments Complex (SEC) or the Zero-G tour.

While these tours are not specifically geared toward children in the way that some of the other content on this list is, they are appropriate for all ages.

7. See Yosemite National Park Online.

Lastly, there’s no better way to spend an afternoon than touring Yosemite National Park. Like a lot of the other experiences on the list, the virtual tour portion of the website focuses on offering panoramic views of the park itself.

However, beyond that, the website offers an education section with suggested activities to go along with the tour. Using these activities, you can ensure that your kids are learning even as they take in all of the sights and sounds that nature has to offer.