What it is: As I said yesterday, the Smithsonian is a wealth of outstanding online activities and interactives. Meet Me at Midnight is an interactive adventure/comic book that takes place in the Smithsonian Art Museum. Through this fun mystery adventure, students are introduced to American art and Artists from the Smithsonian collection. Students are taken on adventures as they explore each item in the Root Monster’s treasure chest. The coyote teaches about sculpture, the headless horseman about landscape, and the ballerina about light. As students go through the adventures they will pick up art terminology. Each story takes place in five galleries: media, technique, design, purpose, and culture. Students will play art games and puzzles to find clues about where the artwork in the treasure chest should be returned to.
How to integrate Meet Me at Midnight into the classroom: Meet Me at Midnight is a fantastic interactive game for third to fifth grade students. The reading throughout the interactive is appropriate for 8-11 year old readers. To me, Meet Me at Midnight feels like a fun graphic novel/comic book adventure that students can interact in. The interactive takes time to get all the way through, once students get to certain points in the interactive, they can stop and get a code that they can plug in the next time they visit the site. They will pick up right where they left off. Meet Me at Midnight is a good way to pique students interest in art. There is a lot of good learning embedded in the games and puzzles. Because there is so much reading on this site, it would make a good reading center/thinking activity on classroom computers. Meet Me at Midnight is really best played individually in a computer lab setting, but I think students would also enjoy playing together in a whole class setting using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.
If your class takes a field trip to your local art museum, this site is a must visit prior to the field trip. It will give students common language about what they see at the museum and students can complete the accompanying Kids Activity guide. If a field trip to the art museum is out of the question, use this site as part of a virtual field trip experience for your students.
Tips: Are you taking your family on a trip to the art museum this summer; start your art adventure by visiting Meet Me at Midnight!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Meet Me at Midnight in your classroom.
Thanks a lot for sharing this amazing interactive game! It looks like a great tool for teaching English as a second language. My students will love it and profit from it!
Meet Me at Midnight looks like a tool that I can use as a technical theatre teacher. This would be a fun way to introduce my students to art and using their artist’s eye. I hope to use it this fall when they are starting learning about design and elements of art. This looks much easier than dragging posters and art books from my office into the theatre where I teach! Thanks for the info!
I so glad that you can use this! It sounds like it will be convenient and fun!
Students will be attracted by the graphic novel look of the site. Really well designed.