Skip to content

Educational Resources in Providence

One of the initiatives that we are undertaking as we develop new programs for the new WaterFire Arts Center will be an Education Center. We are expecting to have construction completed at the WaterFire Arts Center in late 2016 with programming at the Education Center coming online shortly thereafter.

As we develop our own educational resources, please be sure to check out what is going on right now in Providence.

AS220 Galleries

“In light of AS220’s founding mission to provide an uncensored, unjuried, all-ages forum for artists, we extend the opportunity to exhibit original creative work in our galleries to every resident of Rhode Island. To support our mission, AS220’s Galleries and Performance Space are partially subsidized by proceeds from our restaurant, Foo(d), and The Bar at AS220. In the course of a year, over 150 artists participate in the monthly exhibits at AS220’s rotating galleries. There is always work on display at the Main Gallery and Open Window on the ground floor of 115 Empire Street, at the Youth Gallery on Empire Street’s 2nd floor, and at the Project Space Gallery and Reading Room, on the first floor of AS220’s Dreyfus building at 93 Mathewson Street. In 2011, the year-round artists-in-residence of AS220’s three buildings established a Resident Gallery in the Mercantile Block foyer and now organize bi-monthly exhibits in the space.  In addition to free public opening receptions on the first Saturday of the month, the AS220 Galleries host free monthly artist talks by exhibiting artists.”


Providence Children’s Museum

providence-childrens-museum

There’s a different hands-on activity happening every day at the Museum!
Check the calendar for upcoming activities, and learn more about some regular programs below.

Most Providence Children’s Museum programs are planned to accommodate a wide range of ages and abilities and can easily be adapted or extended.  While the calendar recommends specific ages for some programs, older or younger children are welcome to try most activities.


The Providence Public Library – Chace Children’s Discovery Library

In collaboration with Providence Children’s Museum, we’ve created Rhode Island’s latest early learning destination!

The Chace Children’s Discovery Library at PPL offers a captivating and enriching environment, providing a joyful learning experience for young children, their families and caregivers.


The Stephen Hopkins House

Oldest in the city, this 8 room house, built in 1707 & 1743, was home to Declaration-signer Stephen Hopkins, his family, and their slaves for 4 decades. Furnished with antiques & Hopkins heirlooms, tours include bedchambers (one where George Washington slept) study, keeping room, slaves’ room and our Gallery currently showing a collection of 18th century samplers. We’re located on Benefit Street’s “Mile of History” one block from Brown University, the RISD Museum & WaterFire. Admission free, donations requested.


BIG NAZO

BIG NAZO is an international performance group of visual artists, puppet performers, and masked musicians who unite to create bizarre and hilarious larger-than-life sized characters, environments, and spectacles.

Renegade circus family contortionists, a rowdy rodeo horse, a giant three-eyed robot percussionist, break-dancing police officers, Mountain Trolls, blob-like GO-GO Dancers, a charismatic lab rat and his giant man-eating chia pet are just a few of the characters, environments, and spectacles that create an irreverent musical Commedia full of irresolvable conflict, ridiculous dancing and an epic battle with the forces of chaos.

RISD Museum

The RISD Museum was founded on the belief that art, artists, and the institutions that support them play pivotal roles in promoting broad civic engagement and creating more open societies.

Established in 1877 as part of a vibrant creative community, the RISD Museum stewards works of art representing diverse cultures from ancient times to the present. We interpret our collection with the focus on the maker and we deeply engage with art and artists, presenting ideas and perspectives that can be inspiring and complex. We aspire to create an accessible and inclusive environment that builds meaningful relationships across all communities.


Roger Williams Park Zoo

Roger Williams Park Zoo

Early Childhood Education (18 months – 5 years)

Early childhood education programs at Roger Williams Park Zoo offer a fun, age-appropriate way for parents and their children ages 18 months to 5 years to discover the natural world together.   Programs are offered from September through May and themes change monthly, so there’s always a new and exciting experience at every class!


The Rhode Island Historical Society

Rhode Island Historical Society

Museum of Work and Culture
The Museum of Work & Culture shares the stories of the men, women, and children who came to find a better life in Rhode Island’s mill towns in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

John Brown House Museum
The premier 18th-century house and museum in the state, the John Brown House Museum presents important aspects of the social and cultural history of the period when our country was new.


Governor Henry Lippitt House Museum in snow. January 2017.

The Governor Henry Lippitt House Museum

lippitt_logo_2014_website_1[1]

Heir to one of Rhode Island’s leading textile manufacturing families, Henry Lippitt (1818-1891) designed and supervised the construction in 1865 of a house at 199 Hope Street in Providence for his wife Mary Ann Balch (1823-1889) and their six children. Occupied by generations of the Lippitt family for 114 years, the house is a three story, thirty room Renaissance Revival villa with Italian palazzo elements.


The Roger Williams National Memorial

US National Park Service Logo

Roger Williams National Memorial commemorates the life of the founder of Rhode Island and a champion of the ideal of religious freedom. Williams, banished from Massachusetts for his beliefs, founded Providence in 1636. This colony served as a refuge where all could come to worship as their conscience dictated without interference from the state.

Return to the Plan Your Trip page.