Archive for April, 2009

Parade through the streets or put down a blanket at the park: outdoor opportunities are everywhere this weekend.

87th Annual May Fete Parade

Vintage charm abounds in the oldest children’s parade in Northen California. Traffic is halted on University Avenue to allow the passage of hand-pulled floats, and thousands of kids temporarily set free from the need to obey traffic rules gaily skating, cycling, and strolling through the streets in a free-form parade. If your kids want to be in the parade, they should show up by 9:30 ready to be slotted into one of three categories: Kids in Costume, Kids on Wheels or Kids with Pets.

When: Sat., 5/2, 10am; (a fair follows the parade and ends at 1pm); All ages; Free.

Where: Parade begins at 10am at the corner of Emerson Street and University Avenue, Palo Alto; 650-463-4921, cityofpaloalto.org.

Music for Families

The San Francisco’s series of free concerts for families winds up with an exploration of how four creative forces (the composer, the conductor, musicians, and the listening audience) combine to make beautiful music.

When: Sat., 5/2, 2pm; Age 4+; Free.

Where: Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue (at Grove Street), San Francisco; 415-552-8000; sfsymphony.org.

Cinco de Mayo Festival

Celebrate Latin America in this yearly revel set in lush, green Dolores Park. Live music, food, and educational activities for the madding crowds of kids.

When: Sat., 5/2, 10am-6pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Dolores Park, between 18th and 20th Streets and Church and Dolores Streets, San Francisco, sfcincodemayo.com.

Let’s Play Games Day

Play old-fashioned games like hoop-rolling and croquet at the historic Dunsmuir estate. Attendees are encouraged to bring picnic lunches to eat on the Great Meadow.

When: Sun., 4/3, 11am-3pm; Age 2+; Free with admission ($5 for adults; Free for children 11 and under).

Where: Dunsmuir House & Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court (at Peralta Oaks Drive), Oakland, 510-562-0328, dunsmuir.org.

Since when did shopping for groceries become an exercise in balancing priorities instead of just an errand? When you made kids. Having a couple of small people along for the ride really makes you think twice before you grab a box of Pop-Tarts. On the other hand, who can afford to buy organic/natural/locally made all the time? Choosing products is, too often, a tradeoff between what you want and what you can afford, with a lot of information gaps in between to guarantee that you’re both confused and stressed.

Good Guide, once an academic project at UC Berkeley, has become a valuable parental hand-holding resource, with ratings and health/environmental information on thousands of products. What’s in that store-brand toothpaste? Does it really make sense to buy Annie’s organic mac-and-cheese instead of Kraft blue box? Is a tube of California Baby sunscreen worth the $18 or so it costs? For each product Good Guide has an ingredient list that notes which additives are controversial and why, information on makers’ environmental performance, data on the water and energy used to make products, and even data on “social performance:” how the company treats its workers and customers. You’ll never buy blind again.

Good Guide, goodguide.com.

The best way to ensure a quiet afternoon is to plan an exhausting morning, but sometimes Mama just isn’t up to a long run across the soccer field, or endless chase games on the playground. Tire them out instead at Habitot’s weekly Wednesday dance parties. For a half hour each week, kids aged 0-6 are given the space, the music, and the go-ahead to dance their little hearts out to rock, swing, country, disco, and other musical styles. Parents can bring CDs for kids who have favorite tunes, or they can just enjoy Habitot’s collection.

Bring a lunch (there’s a snack room, but no food on sale), hang around playing after the dance party, and you’ll be bringing home a carful of tired, quiet children by afternoon.

Dance parties happen each Wednesday from 10:45 to 11:15am at Habitot Children’s Discovery Museum, 2065 Kittredge Street (at Shattuck Avenue), Berkeley. Call 510-647-1111 or visit habitot.org.

Harvey Milk Center, located almost in the exact center of San Francisco adjacent to Duboce Park, has been closed for a few years while its sagging facilities were renovated. The work’s finally almost done, and now Center staff is moving in to the spiffy new digs and cranking up its offerings again with a set of summer day camps. They’re school-day-length and relatively reasonably priced: about $340-$375 for a two-week session, with after-care available for $60 a day.

Offerings include art classes, dance, capoeira, photography (using Harvey Milk’s darkroom facilities, well-known to local photographers), and an intriguing class on making musical instruments from wood and other raw materials. Given that before the renovation, the Center’s facilities were so-so while its instructors were fab, parents may be excited about this ground-floor opportunity to play in a cool new place.

Summer sessions begin June 15 and run through August 14;  camps are for ages 6-9 and run two weeks, Monday through Friday from 9:45am to 3:45pm (after-care is available from 9am to 5pm). The Harvey Milk Center is located at 50 Scott Street (at Waller Street) in San Francisco; call 415-554-8742 visit sfreconline.org.

You want your house to look sleek and up-to-date? Stay far far away from Babies R Us and their ilk, which will have your house screaming “Square!” Oakland’s ModernSeed has the children’s clothing, furniture, and toys that parents will covet, not cringe from. They have Oeuf Toddler Beds instead of the $50 IKEA cheapies, an Offi Nest Bassinet instead of a cheesy Moses basket. They have the finds both expected (like the Eames plastic rocker) and the unusual (SpaceFrame, the recycled plastic building blocks that can make a thousand play forts).

The true ModernSeed experience is at the Oakland retail store, where you can run your hands over everything and sit on the furniture; but the website is a gas too if small children make your life shopping-challenged.

ModernSeed is located at 4456 Piedmont Avenue in Oakland; call 510-547-4445 or visit modernseed.com.

Hey, at least it’s not going to be 100 degrees this weekend. Bugs, a bike ride, hot cars, and other reasons to get out of the house.

Bug Day

Special exhibits and activities to teach kids about all that creep and crawl. Kids can participate in maggot races, run through the termite maze, touch silkworms, walking sticks and millipedes, create insect art, and play amongst the Randall’s other cool regular toys, including the model train station open only on Saturdays.

When: Sat., 4/25, 10am-2pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way (at Roosevelt), 415-554-9600, randallmuseum.org.

SF Bike Coalition Girls Riding Club

Girls aged 10 and over are invited on a special bike ride just for them. Participants must already know how to ride a bike.

When: Sat., 4/25, 10am-1pm; Age 10-18; Free.

Where: Presidio Community YMCA’s Bike Skills Area, Barnard Avenue (at Hicks Road), San Francisco, 415-447-9615, sfbike.org.

Dia de los Ninos/Dia de los Libros

This San Francisco version of the Latin American holiday celebrating children has morphed into a storytelling festival, with on-stage reading of kids’ books, music, dance performances, and a visit from the Bookmobile.

When: Sun., 4/26, 1-4pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Dolores Park, between 18th and 20th Streets and Church and Dolores Streets, 800-723-3566, sfkids.org.

Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show

Automotive enthusiasts throng by the thousands to this massive expo of flying, driving, and working machines on the coast. Take a ride in a zeppelin or examine old tractors; view military planes and hot new sports cars.

When: Sun., 4/27, 10am-4pm; Free-$20.

Where: Half Moon Bay Airport, Highway 1 and Route 92, Half Moon Bay, 650-726-2328, miramarevents.com.

After a long, long slog through the IKEA (including a trek back through the store when you discovered in the basement that neither shelves nor drawers were in stock for the model of desk you chose), the last thing you want to do is herd the kids into the echoing restaurant for Swedish meatballs, even if they do come with lingonberry jam. Escape instead to nearby Emerybay Public Market, just a hop, skip, and jump up the street.

The Public Market is crowded and not exactly cheap, but the big draw for parents is the multiplicity of ethnic eats within, 25 stalls that serve everything from burgers to Vietnamese food. Your kid can have his plain bean and rice burrito from the Mexican place, while you dine on Afghan pumpkin stew, tom yum from the Thai place, or dol sot bi bim bap from the Korean stall. Finish off with a sweet crepe from the crepe stand and you’re fortified for the long, shopping-bag-crowded trip home.

Emerybay Public Market is located at 5959 Shellmound Street (at 64th Street), Emeryville; call 510-652-5852 or visit emerymarket.com.

The moments before dinner hits the table are dicey ones for any family. A good tool to keep little hands busy and little mouths shut: Modern-twist’s Hide & Seek placemat, 14 x 16 inches of reusable coloring fun. Designed by a group of mostly Bay Area artists (who obviously number some parents among them), the Hide & Seek Placemat is made from food-grade silicone, and is hand-screened with a playful scene of bug-eyed fairytalesque tots at play. Kids can use washable markers to color in the scene, which can be wiped clean and colored again. And again. And again. Until the spaghetti is ready or the waiter comes back with a straw. Ah, isn’t it nice eating in the peaceful quiet?

Hide & Seek Placemat, $18 at modern-twist.com.

It sucks to spend hundreds of dollars on maternity wear that you’re going to dump on Goodwill six months from now. Skinnymaternity.com, a new website launched in the Bay Area, intends to be the Craigslist of maternity and new baby gear. Got stuff to sell? List it on the site. Need something? Cruise over to see if someone else has it.

The site’s brand new and patchy right now, but hopefully it’ll fill up soon with stuff that won’t be going to a landfill instead. And let’s also hope that it will be stuff that’s a mite hipper than you find in Goodwill’s maternity section, the final resting place of all those little flowered tieback dresses from the ’80s.

Visit skinnymaternity.com.

Plenty of kids will learn how to paint or play soccer this summer…but how many will learn how to make neon art, or the art of blacksmithing? Oakland institution The Crucible has its spring open house this Saturday, the perfect opportunity to check out some unusual demos (art bikes! fire dancing!), and learn about the Crucible’s summer/vacation camps and youth classes.

Kids aged 8-11 get the safest classes: sculpture, jewelry-making, woodcarving. Students age 12 and up, however, get to play with fire, literally: blacksmithing, an introduction to neon art, welding, robotics. Learn about all of them tomorrow, and see what other artists large and small have wrought in the eclectic art exhibition. There’s food and live glassworking and metal casting, and probably dangerous things that spit fire. Oh goody!

The spring open house begins at 11am and runs until 5pm at The Crucible, 1260 Seventh Street (at Union Street), Oakland; call 510-444-0919 or visit thecrucible.org.