Quarantine (Life and Culture)

If you enjoy watching birds floating by or chipmunks scampering across your lawn, why not have a go at drawing them to remember what gave you some cheer? With a few basic tips, you can begin making simple drawings. Don’t worry about how good they are. Enjoy that you are learning to see nature. As…

The past year has been difficult for many people. The pandemic, the politics, the job loss and the isolation — most Americans have had to find some new coping mechanisms to make it through. Here’s one: erasure poetry.Creativity can be healing in difficult times, but it’s not always easy to tap into those creative juices.…

I was only a few days into a meandering trip across America, and already I was easing into something of a nighttime routine. Earlier in the day I’d pinpointed a promising campsite in Ozark National Forest. Now, I found myself ascending an isolated forestry road to get to it, my tires crackling over its rough,…

If you like looking at trees, and bark, and the pattern of veins in leaves; if you are fascinated by clouds or the spots on a ladybug’s back; if you like to split open rocks and see what’s inside, then you are already an outdoor scientist. The best part is you don’t need any special…

Here is a sampling of the week’s events and how to tune in (all times are Eastern). Note that events are subject to change after publication.MondayCelebrate Indigenous cuisine at the “Reclamation Feast,” a seminar hosted by the Museum of Food and Drink and the Greene Space. During the 90-minute event, participants will learn to make…

This week is the one-year anniversary of the At Home section, and what better way to celebrate than with a puzzle containing a hidden picture? Solve the clues and reveal the twist, with a mini shout-out to the section’s basket-weaving activity from August.Write the answers to the 16 clues in the blank spaces on each…

After a year with a marked increase in discrimination and harassment aimed at Asian-Americans across the country, the past few months have been particularly shocking, in both the frequency and violence of attacks. A powerful way to fight racism is education. Conversations about prejudice with your children starting at a young age go a long…

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Last fall, when The New York Times Learning Network invited teenagers across the United States to tell us what living in a pandemic was like, we didn’t expect so many answers — nor did we expect…

If it feels as if you’ve already explored every last nook and cranny of your cramped lockdown life know this: Right under your nose, there’s a hidden world operating entirely out of view.That world is geocaching, a no-contact game of hide-and-seek between hundreds of thousands of strangers. Players hide caches — waterproof containers, usually small…

Imitation is the best kind of flattery. All creative people, whether they be writers, artists, dancers, singers or actors, know that. Think about the performers on a TV show like “The Voice,” who sometimes perform the song of a judge they are targeting. Sometimes, it is imitation that gets them on the team of their…