Murray Makers Virtual
This link will take you to a collection of rooms with a calming theme. Feel free to visit whenever you need a break!
Murray Makers // Making at Home
Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments. Music Lab is a tool that supports the exploration of music and its connections to science, math, art, and more. Check out the Song Maker experiment, which lets you make and share your own songs. No account is needed!
You can submit your design solution for their monthly contest by following the build guidelines and requirements in the challenge.
To be eligible for prizes, share your creation on social media using the hashtag #FluxSTEAM and tag @fluxspace_io
Most challenges have no restrictions on what to use, each challenge is open to use whatever you have laying around the house :)
The creators of the Maker Faire and Make: Magazine, the leading publication for adult makers, are hosting an ongoing, family-friendly Maker Camp! Keep an eye on their upcoming events tab for live-streamed making events, like marble runs (!!!) and paper flowers.
Visit their project library for instructions to build:
Mad Libs is a game where players generate a list of words to fill in the blanks in a story template before reading it aloud. The results are hilarious!
Some of the included templates:
Goofy Mad Libs
Crazy Crafting Mad Libs
Dog Ate My Mad Libs
Game Over! Mad Libs
90s Mad Libs
Happily Ever Mad Libs
Ninjas/Pirates/Spy Mad Libs
Meow Libs
22 different projects are available, most using only materials you have in your house right now! Many challenges are appropriate for all ages, so ask your siblings to solve them with you.
Here are our top five picks:
Can You Fit Through an Index Card?
Who Can Fly the Most Cargo?
Design a Paper Plate Marble Maze
How Far Can Your Straw Rocket Travel?
Can You Build A Bridge Using Only Pennies?
Jarrett J. Krosoczka (aka JJK) wrote and illustrated popular graphic novel series Lunch Lady and award winning Hey, Kiddo.
Each weekday at 2pm, JJK will host a new live drawing lesson. Click on the video to start on day one, or visit his YouTube channel to watch any days you may have missed!
First Second Books, makers of many of our favorite graphic novels, have a new YouTube series called #SketchSchool.
Each episode features a new illustrator sharing their process and techniques to create comic art. Featuring:
Ngozi Ukazu for CHECK, PLEASE
John Patrick Green for INVESTIGATORS
LeUyen Pham for BEST FRIENDS
Graham Annable for PETER & ERNESTO
Lucy Knisley for GO TO SLEEP (I MISS YOU)
Use TinkerCAD to Design in 3D
Go to TinkerCAD.com and click "SIGN IN" and use your school Google account to begin.
Try the tutorials to learn the moves, then create a new design!
(Your design will stay safe in your account until we get back to school to print it!)
Enrichment Activities
An art teacher favorite, Art Assignment episodes are just 5-15 minutes long, but this series leaves an impact! Try the assignment Make a Book with Meat (or other atypical materials) or the similarly foodie episode BUTTER + EGGS = ART, sometimes or stretch your brain with Creativity is Overrated or redefine it with The Definition of Art or The Case for Video Art.
Explore video topics from How the food you eat affects your brain to How to stay calm under pressure or have you ever wondered How short selling works or Why the ancient Greeks couldn't see blue or maybe consider Why are we so obsessed with memes? or why not check out The monster duel riddle or perhaps How is your phone changing you? or even Who decides how long a second is?
Short, beautifully illustrated and animated videos explore topics in science and medicine, in our past and our futures. Kurzgesagt, which translates to "in a nutshell" in German, covers topics like black holes and wormholes and questions as mind-blowing as How do we know reality is real? and Will we eventually be able to upload our brains? and Can we cure aging?
Did you know that we've sent 12 people to the moon, but only 3 people to the deepest part of our oceans? Technically 95% of Earth's ocean remains unexplored by humans. Follow this link to embark on a scrolling adventure of the deep sea from the comfort of your Chromebook.
If you've enjoyed our Breakout box experiences at Murray Avenue, check out Breakout Live, now archived so you can play whenever you'd like! No login is required to participate in these digital breakouts!
Missing Skype a Scientist in the library? Now families can sign up to Skype with any kind of scientist that students are interested in learning about from home! Explore here, then sign up here.
Or follow this link to see the LIVE Skype events happening every week, or scroll to the bottom to watch prerecorded sessions like "Astrophysics and the Perseid Meteor Shower" with Dr. Nathalie Ouellette or "Squid are Basically Rockets" with Dr. Diana Li.
Tessellations are patterns resulting from arranging, or tiling, shapes without any gaps. You can see this in the front of a brick house, the tiles on your bathroom floor, or the repeated pattern on your favorite clothing. Learn to create your own design to cover any surface with pattern.
Vi Hart explains the Fibonacci sequence and patterns found in nature while drawing and talking very quickly..!
Take a Virtual Field Trip
If, like me, you just miss being surrounded by books, take this 360-degree tour of Harvard's beautiful 105-year-old library. You can almost feel the cool marble and smell the old books!
Explore everything from the cars of the future to how nature informs science at 3M to what it's like to work for Facebook.
Travel the world and explore natural environments without leaving your living room. Explore rainforests, coral reefs, deserts, coastal areas, and renewable energy.
Explore dinosaurs, ancient civilizations, rainforests, and elsewhere in these adaptive 360° field trips!
Watch live video feeds of jellyfish, sharks, and coral reefs as well as live feeding videos of penguins and sea otters.
Live feeds of your favorite animals including apes, koalas, giraffes, owls, polar bears, tigers, and penguins.
Explore the surface of the red planet through the camera of the NASA's Curiosity rover.
Take a tour of a working Canadian farm to see where eggs, apples, and milk are produced.
Tour Arconic’s Advanced Manufacturing hub in Alcoa, Tennessee to learn how robotics and digital technology impact the skills needed to succeed in Advanced Manufacturing.
Behind-the-scenes tour by Boeing employees preparing to launch of the Starliner/CST-100 spacecraft and to deploy the Space Launch System (SLS).
Beginning on March 16th, the Met will stream one opera each night at 7:30pm.
Virtually Visit an Art Museum
Tour Egyptian antiquities, the ceiling of the Galerie d'Apollon, and the remains of the moat from when the museum was a fortress.
Explore works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
Visit an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including clothing from the colonial and Revolutionary eras and a collection of artwork from Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.
Tour six floors of Contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.
This historical museum is home to many ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Pergamon Altar.
Explore artwork from the Dutch Golden Age, including artists like Vermeer and Rembrandt.
The largest collection of artwork by Vincent van Gogh, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 personal letters.
Discover archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage, including ancient artifacts, some from the Mayan civilization.
Explore European paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs from as early as the 8th Century.
Brazil’s first modern museum features art placed in clear perspex frames so art seems to float in midair.
The art collection of one of Florence, Italy’s most famous families, the de'Medicis, housed in a building designed for them in 1560.
Follow this link to virtually walk through dozens of famous works from French artists like Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin.