Contents
Virtual events
Virtual events listings - DailyInfo
Oxford's DailyInfo site shows you the latest live and online streaming events from all over Oxford.
BBC Culture in Quarantine
BBC Arts have created 'Culture in Quarantine', a website full of things to keep you occupied during the lockdown, from dance to life drawing and much more in between.
Creative activities for kids
Little Ankle Biters - guide to keeping the kids entertained
Oxfordshire guide outlining various online and offline learning and creative tools for children. Their guide also includes tips on how to structure your day and a list of activities for children.
Little Ankle Biters guide to keeping kids entertained
ChatterPack - list of free, online, boredom-busting resources
A list of free, online, boredom-busting resources for people isolated at home.
ChatterPack - online boredom-busting resources
Fields in Trust - activities for kids
Engage your kids with nature and get them being creative with a range of fun park-themed activities and challenges.
Visit the Fields in Trust website
Girlguiding - Adventures At Home
Activities and adventures to keep yourself occupied - fun for kids, adults, everyone!
LEGO and DUPLO play ideas
50 LEGO and DUPLO play ideas. With ideas like these, your kids will never be bored!
See the 50 play ideas on Facebook
Doodles with Mo Willems
Illustrator Mo Willems has created a series of short ‘Lunch Doodles for Kids’ on YouTube.
Have a go at the doodles on YouTube
Oxford Poetry Library activity pack
Free activity packs for people to follow at home, suitable for kids aged 7-14. Pack themes include birds, plants and mini-beasts.
Visit the Oxford Poetry Library website
Tate Kids
Loads of activities from making chocolate art to creating pop art like Andy Warhol, as well as games and quizzes.
Check out the Tate Kids website
Oxford museums and galleries
Oxford museum tours
Take a virtual tour of some of Oxford's wold famous museums:
- Museum of Natural History tour
- Pitt Rivers Museum tour
- Ashmolean Museum tour
- Bodleian Library tour
- History of Science Museum
Ashmolean Museum
You can also explore thousands of years of history through the online collections.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH)
You can continue to explore the range of online content available including their exhibitions, collections, and museum highlights.
Museum of Oxford
- Find activities, things to do from home and short, bite size videos on the Museum of Oxford's Facebook and Twitter and YouTube pages.
- Enjoy a virtual tour of the historic Oxford Town Hall.
- City Stories is our collecting website to gather your stories about Oxford. It is used to collect and display material and information relating to your city for all to enjoy. It will also be a resource for the Museum of Oxford to draw on when designing and creating new exhibitions. We invite anyone to add to our stories!
- A photograph of a quiet Oxford street
- A rainbow you have created to put in your window
- A diary or record of the front line work you are delivering
- It could be a video, recording, text, photograph or object
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We are living through a monumental event which will shape all of our futures. We want to capture and record what you are doing and the effect of Covid-19 on you and the city. Please use Oxford’s City Stories to add anything you feel reflects the current situation.
Modern Art Oxford
Enter Modern Art Oxford’s thought-provoking and visually stunning virtual exhibitions online.
National and international museums and galleries
The British Museum
There are plenty of ways to keep exploring the British Museum online.
Explore The British Museum from home
Science Museum
While the Science Museum is closed, their collection — and the inspirational stories it contains — remains open to you online.
Ignite your curiosity with the Science Museum
The National Gallery
The Gallery is now open again. Booking online in advance is required. To avoid travelling there, you can view lots of the collection online:
- National Gallery - Collection highlights
- National Gallery - Search the collection
- National Gallery - Virtual tour
More international museums and galleries
You can explore the collections from some of the most famous galleries and museums in the world online.
- The Louvre - Paris
- The Uffizi - Florence
- Museo Nacional Del Prado - Madrid
- Mauritshuis - The Hague
- Hermitage Museum - St. Petersburg
- Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam
- Guggenheim from Home
- The Museum of Modern Art - New York
- Tate Modern - London
Reading and poetry
Audible
Free stories for children of all ages while schools are closed. Audible is a website where kids of all ages can listen to hundreds of Audible audio titles.
Storyline Online
Storyline Online features celebrated actors reading hundreds of wonderful children’s stories live. Free of charge and access any time.
Oxford Poetry Library
Oxford Poetry Library will email you an inspirational or uplifting poem every weekday to start your day.
Sign up to receive a poem for breakfast
Concerts and music
Virtual concerts
There are loads of live streams and virtual concerts to watch on Billboard.
View the virtual concerts list on the Billboard website
DIY Radio
Create your very own radio show at home with Hunt and Darton's family activity pack.
Find out more on the Hunt and Darton website
Blob Opera
Create your own opera-inspired song with Blob Opera in a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
Get musical with Google and Blob Opera
Theatre, film, opera and dance
Dancin' Oxford
Loads of dance listings and activities for all ages.
Visit the Dancin' Oxford website
The North Wall
The North Wall, based in Summertown, are hosting virtual exhibitions, and free online streams of plays and children's theatre on their website.
There's new activity packs for families to do together released every Friday that tie in with their online family theatre programme.
Film Oxford
Film Oxford are now streaming dance, drama, documentary and experimental classics, alongside rarely seen footage of Oxford bands at Common People 2018.
Watch on the FIlm Oxford YouTube channel
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Watch Shakespeare on demand with the online streaming service Globe Player. Stream Shakespeare's plays recorded at the Globe Theatre in London.
Watch Shakespeare on Globe Player
Royal Opera House
While the Royal Opera House is closed, a selection of opera and music performances can be accessed for free on their website.
See Royal Opera House performances
Metropolitan Opera
During this extraordinary and difficult time, the Met Opera hopes to brighten the lives of our audience members even while our stage is dark. Each day, a different encore presentation from the company’s Live in HD series is being made available for free streaming.
Stream Metropolitan Opera performances
Marquee TV
With hundreds of dance, opera and theatre performances from around the world, Marquee TV has everything you need to enjoy arts and culture on-demand from the comfort of your living room. Includes performance from the Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House Glyndebourne and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Stream dance, opera and theatre on Marquee TVs
Cooking
Jamie Oliver - Keep Cooking and Carry On
Jamie Oliver is sharing easy-to-follow, super-flexible recipes with lots of useful swaps and tips to help you feed yourself and your loved ones.
Gardens
Virtual garden tours
House Beautiful has rounded up virtual tours of five breathtaking gardens from across the globe. Explore the lush and serene gardens of England, France, Chicago, and Hawaii, and live like a Rothschild, Claude Monet, or a British Royal. Anything is possible from your living room!
The Eden Project
While you're stuck at home, get inspiration from a wide variety of free resources and activities for all ages. Explore their resources on gardening, green living, play and more.
Free activities from The Eden Project
Gardeners' World - 'how to' guides
Create a beautiful garden with the help of easy-to-follow projects, practical videos and problem-solving advice.
See the Gardeners' World website
Rural Sprout - re-grow vegetables from scraps
20 vegetables you can re-grow from scraps to save money and be sustainable at the same time.
Visit the Rural Sprout website
Naturehood
Get outside and explore your garden with local wildlife project, Naturehood. Contribute to scientific research on wildlife-friendly features in gardens, and improve your outdoor space for wildlife.
Get involved with the Naturehood project
Heritage
Oxfordshire Heritage Search
The Heritage Search is a catalogue of Oxfordshire's cultural and heritage resources. Use it to find a wide range of materials relating to Oxfordshire's past.
Search the Oxfordshire Heritage catalogue
Picture Oxon - historic images
Historic images of Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley from the 1850s to the present, including 300,000 catalogue records of images and 100,000 digital images.
Singing
The Sofa Singers
The Sofa Singers offers free (membership or donation optional) online singing events from James Sills that brings hundreds of people together from around the world to spark joy and human connection.
Soundabout Live
Soundabout is a local charity that uses music and sound to unlock the potential of people with complex learning difficulties. They are currently offering inclusive choir sessions, running remotely via Facebook Live.
Join Soundabout sessions on Facebook
Suggest an Activity Hub idea
Help us grow the Activity Hub by suggesting new ideas we can include on the website.
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