LEARN SOMETHING
If you miss school and are looking for instruction in the warm summer months, the city has as much to offer as any other time of the year.
Summertime Art Workshops
Alliance of Queens Artists
99-10 Metropolitan Ave., Forest Hills
(718) 520-9842
The Alliance of Queens Artists is offering art workshops for kids ages 6 and up throughout July and August. The AQA Gallery and Arts Center is also offering classes for adults.
The children’s classes come in five sets, and each set consists of eight sessions. For a complete list of all programs and fees, please visit www.arts4u.org.
The Fundamentals
Free Summer Sports Clinics
Forest Park, Queens & Highland Park, Brooklyn
July 9-Aug. 16
NYC Parks and Recreation is offering free clinics on learning how to play cricket, flag football, basketball, and adaptive sports at Forest and Highland Parks.
At Highland Park, youths from the ages of 7 to 15 can participate in cricket clinics on Mondays at noon. Basketball clinics will take place from 9 to 11 a.m. or noon to 2 p.m.; girls clinics will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays and boys will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays.
At Forest Park, flag football will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. or noon to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Victory Field for youths ages 9 to 13. Adaptive sports clinics will also be held at Victory Field, with a time and date to be announced.
Space is limited and registration is required for these clinics, so call (718) 235-4100 to reserve a spot in these great programs. And remember, no experience is necessary.
Red Cross Safety Courses
138-02 Queens Blvd., Briarwood
The American Red Cross of Greater New York will be offering Safety and Preparedness courses in its Queens office. These classes include Sports Injury Prevention, Basic First Aid and CPR/AED on July 1 and 20. Fees vary by class but the information dispensed by these courses is invaluable. Visit www.nyredcross.org for complete information.
Making Kids Happy
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th St., Corona
(718) 699-0005
www.nyscience.org
Kids explore the fun of the Hall of Science’s latest playground. |
First-grade students from Corona’s PS 28 were on-hand June 21 at the unveiling of the New Science Playground at the New York Hall of Science. Wearing matching yellow T-shirts, they waited through the press conference before descending a staircase into the multi-million dollar recreational facility.
President and CEO of the Hall of Science Marilyn Hoyt welcomed museum members and government officials, and stated proudly that adding 30,000 square feet to the pre-existing playground rendered the Science Playground the largest in the country.
The original Science Playground, which opened in 1997, has consistently drawn large crowds. Its slides, seesaws, and water play area enable children to engage in hands-on activities that relate to physics.
The New Science Playground, designed by architect Joan Krevlin and landscaper Lee Weintraub on a $2.7 million budget, seeks to encourage children ages 6 and under to explore the natural environment. It features a water vortex area with steel drums, sandbox areas with conveyor systems, play houses, tunnels and a giant bird’s nest.
Museum employees, dubbed “explainers,” were stationed across the grounds to provide demonstrations. Simon Lee, a 19-year-old biology major at Queens College and future pediatrician, will spend his summer break working as an explainer. He called the combination of the Hall of Science and playground a “double dip.”
As the morning event wore on, the first graders began to lose interest in the new playground and wandered toward the 10-year-old slides. As part of the physics playground, the slides demonstrate how the force of gravity is converted into the force of motion. Mr. Met, a costumed character with a baseball for a head, knelt at the bottom of the slides to distribute high fives.
“We expect there will be a lot of crossover,” said Hall of Science Director of Communications Mary Record, regarding the students’ attraction to the previously established playground.
After multiple turns on the slide, first-grader Chelsea Valdez turned her attention to the Archimedes Screw, an exhibit that enables visitors to use a wheel and axle to move water up a contraption.
“It’s like a water fountain that’s finished,” Valdez said, recognizing that the exhibit was similar to an object she had seen elsewhere in life.
Dana Schutt, a teacher at PS 28, smiled as her students explored.
“This is all they’re gonna talk about for the rest of the year,” Schutt said.
For more information about visiting the New Science Playground visit www.nyscience.org.
—Juliet Werner
