Don’t skip out on art and music while your kids are home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Art and music help kids develop discipline, creativity, confidence, critical thinking skills. It helps build connections with others, improves memory and teaches about different cultures. It strengthens language, reading and math skills. Plus, the arts make us feel better and we could all use a little more of that these days. Here are online art and music resources to inspire kids at home.

For early childhood

1. The Center for Puppetry Arts has workshops, museum tours & live streaming puppet shows!

2. Crayola has videos and instructions for art projects to do at home.

3. Sesame Street has videos, games and activities to make art and music with favorite characters.

4. Kinderart offers info on teaching art to preschoolers as well as a large database of activities.

5. Jumpstart has lesson plans on teaching color through art.

6. PBS Kids has music games and activities. 

7. A Place of Our Own will show you how to make musical instruments with your preschooler out of recycled material.

8. Nick, Jr. has a preschool music maker game.

9. Activity Village has instructions for dozens of preschool arts and crafts projects. 

10. Daria has fun music videos from around the world. 

11. ABC Ya! has drawing, coloring and painting games.

For Elementary

12. Masterpiece Society has free art lessons. 

13. Incredible Art has a long list of online art games.

14. San Francisco Symphony has online games and activities for kids. 

15. New York Philharmonic has a kid zone with concert videos, games, puzzles and instructions for making instruments. 

16. Color with Leo is a collection of online art games.

17. HGTV has instructions for making clay sea sculptures. 

18. Columbus Museum of Art lets kids chose a background and build a digital collage with yarn, shells and other scraps. It then encourages them to go recreate it in real life.

19. Scrapcoloring is a digital coloring book where kids can explore colors and patterns.

20. Open Culturehasfree printable coloring pages featuring art from 113 museums. 

21. Mo Willems, animator, author and voice actor, is doing lunchtime art classes at 1 pm EST.

22. Classics for Kids offers videos, games, quizzes and activities about classical music composers. 

23. National Gallery of Art has lessons, online courses, videos, films and activities for all ages. 

24. Kennedy Center offers activities and lessons on art, dance, performing arts and more.

25. Toy Theatre lets kids use virtual tools to build, create and animate. 

26. #metkids by the Metropolitan Museum of Art is online content made for, by and with kids.

27. Ducksters teaches about artists and art history.

28. Teaching Ideas has fact cards about famous arts, online books with activities and printables. 

29 Art Projects for Kids has instructions for projects like drawing a peacock or bubble lettering.

30. Art for Kids Hub teaches step by step drawing.

31. Chrome Music Lab lets users explore musical concepts and sounds.

32. Kids Guitar Zone offers free beginner lessons.

33. Piano Patch Kids has free downloadable lessons to teach your child to play the piano, even if you’ve never played before yourself. 

For Teens

34. Pixar in a Box offers behind the scenes looks at animation.

35. Violin Online offers free sheet music and beginner violin lessons. 

36. Virtual Drumming turns computer keyboards into percussion sets.

37. National Women’s History Museum has an online digital classroom database of lesson plans.

38. Watch Know Learn has videos on artists and art concepts.

39. Google Arts and Culture has a new lesson or activity each day, such as cool things to do with your phone camera or a look into Frida Kahlo’s diary. 

40. Creating Music lets users create and listen to their own musical masterpieces.

41. The Smithsonian has oral histories of jazz. 

42. BBC Music Planet has videos showcasing music from around the world. 

43. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has guides and discussion questions for many pieces of art.

44. The Art Institute of Chicago has free educator lesson plan packets. 

45. Crash Course has very informative looks into art topics with authors Hank and John Green. 

46. Artsology explores topics like “how do artists portray emotion through their work?”

47. Debbie Allen actress, director, choreographer and dancer,  is teaching dance classes on Instagram live. Check out her Instagram page for the schedule. 

48. Playbill has a list of Boadway plays you can watch at home.

49. Bomomo is a cool digital drawing website that lets users doodle and create.

50. The National Gallery of Art has interactive activities and lessons. 

Use these online art and music resources as inspiration to help kids create something special.  Then let everyone show off their work. Transform a room into an art gallery.  Have a family talent show. Art and music are great for bonding, creating memories and making the world a little brighter. 

Also check out:

50 Online Art and Music Resources to Help Kids Learn and Create from Home