School Age

When you have a child with a summertime birthday and can’t do the “bringing snacks for the whole class” thing, a party needs a little extra flash to compensate — particularly since half the invitees will be on vacation no matter what weekend you choose.

Liven up the party table with a custom cake or cupcakes from the Bumblebee Bakeshop. Owned and operated by a local mom who dropped out of the corporate world to bake and be with her own kid more, Bumblebee is wise in the ways of children. Cake-maker Lisa will inquire after your child’s flavor preferences (chocolate buttercream or whipped-cream frosting?) and favorite colors (pink or green? or both?) if you choose one of the simpler frosted cakes. Or she’ll whip up a sweet 2D vision in frosting: maybe a train cake for your little engineer? Or a pink princess castle for the tiara-wearer in your family?

Bumblebee’s cakes are made with high-quality fresh ingredients. No Crisco goop here, no hard icing with a bitter aftertaste, just a potent butter-sugar hit that’ll thrill the grownups as much as the kids. And for $12 extra Bumblebee will deliver your cake anywhere in San Francisco. Now that makes me weak at the knees.

Bumblebee Bakeshop is located in the Cow Hollow/Marina district, but does not have a retail storefront. Call 415-205-2458 or visit bumblebeebakeshop.com to find out more or order a cake. Order a week or two ahead of time to be sure you’ll get your cake on time, but Lisa can occasionally accommodate last-minute requests.

The weather’s been shockingly nice for July, but the end-of-summer fog will descend sooner or later, making the playground uncomfy and leaving city parents without many indoor play options that don’t cost upwards of $20 an hour.

Pack up the kids and a picnic and bring them over to the Randall Museum, the smallest, sweetest, friendliest children’s museum in town. For the eight-and-under set, the features are many: a tiny menagerie with calm rabbits and ducks, stations where kids can build their own Lego towers and subject them to earthquake-like forces, a toddler play room, a vast and intricate model train set (only open Saturdays), a restored earthquake shack. Kids are allowed to handle almost everything, and comfy spots where parents can sit and watch their children careening about seem to be everywhere.

When you’re ready for a snack, sit outside at the picnic table or in the circular garden area. Young kids can drop crumbs with abandon; older ones will want to race each other through the tiny garden. If they still have energy after the museum, you can even take the winding walk up to the top of Randall Rock for one of the best panoramic views of the city.

In summertime the Randall offers only a few of its noted classes and programs, including the popular Parent-Child Woodworking course and instruction in jewelry-making and ceramics. But in the fall look for toddler art classes, the teen cinema-watching club, robotics classes, family arts-and-crafts workshops and more. Classes are low-cost, and admission to the museum is always free, making the Randall one heck of a tantalizing bargain.

The Randall Museum is located at 199 Museum Way (at Roosevelt), San Francisco. Call 415-554-9600 or visit randallmuseum.org.

Soccer players, science teachers, skating and Sunday music for your San Francisco summertime.

42nd Annual International Children’s Games

If you have a budding sports star in your home, this unofficial children’s auxiliary event is probably already on your radar. If not, don’t pass up this chance to see the cream of the youth sports crop from over 50 countries, hosted this year only in our own fair city. Attend golf, swimming, tennis, table tennis, track and field, soccer, basketball and volleyball match-ups, according to your own athlete’s taste.

When: Thu.-Tue., 7/10-15; various times; Age 3+; $5-$55 for individual events or multi-day passes.
Where: Various venues around San Francisco including Kezar Stadium, the Harding Park Golf Course, and the Koret Swimming Pool, 415-989-0070, sficg3008.com.

Iron Science Teacher Competition

The Exploratorium parodies popular TV cooking competition Iron Chef with a competition between Bay Area science teachers. Teachers will be given an ingredient, which they will have to use in a demonstration.

When: Fri., 7/11, 12pm; Age 7+; Free with admission, Free-$14.
Where: Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon St., 415-563-7337, exploratorium.edu.

Dancing on Ice

The Yerba Buena ice rink turns 10, and the Skating Club of San Francisco is a venerable 75. The commemorative celebration features duo and solo skating performances from U.S. Olympic bronze medalists Kim Navarro and Brent Bommentre in what the Skating Club calls “a magical night of lights, music, dazzle, and entertainment.”

When: Sat., 7/12, 7:45pm; Age 3+; $20-$40.
Where: Yerba Buena Ice Skating and Bowling Center, 750 Folsom Street (at 3rd Street), San Francisco, 415-823-3532, scsf.org.

Country Sundays

Each week the small, friendly Portreo Hill bar Thee Parkside has an all-ages show with local acts playing rockabilly, country, americana and bluegrass music. Free admission and a small-but-nice menu of food (french fries and green papaya salad!) make this a great regular bet for weekend fun. Plus, parents can have a beer!

When: Ongoing, Sundays at 4pm; All ages; Free.
Where: Thee Parkside, 1600 17th Street (at Wisconsin Street), San Francisco, 415-503-0393, theeparkside.com.

In a report released Thursday, a San Francisco Civil Grand Jury has recommended that the San San Francisco Unified School District should dump its “confusing, time-consuming, alienating” system of assigning students to schools via lottery, and instead assign students to schools in their neighborhood.

It was tough to hear over the “Oh HELL yeah” emanating from local parents, but the grand jury insulted the lottery system on all fronts: it’s expensive, it’s confusing, it chases intimidated families out of the city, and worst of all, it doesn’t even work. One 2005 study found that more than 50 percent of the SFUSD’s schools were “severely segregated.”

The lottery was only a stopgap solution anyway. As a story in the San Francisco Examiner explains, a 1983 NAACP suit caused a federal court to order San Francisco to integrate its public schools. Another lawsuit in 1991 said that using race to assign students to schools was also unfair. Thus our bizarre lottery system, which assigns weight to such factors as the languages students speak, their socioeconomic background, and the performance of individual schools.

For parents the process is stressful and confusing; for taxpayers the lottery’s expensive: it costs $2 million a year just to maintain the 29-member staff necessary to help parents with the application process. And here’s the real kicker: The federal order to desegregate the schools expired in 2005, so there’s not even anyone making us run it anymore.

Does that sound racist? I’m not jumping up and down that schools are so segregated. I drive by the nice, expensive private schools in town and see only white faces, and then by the schoolyards in the neighborhoods I can afford to rent in and see only brown ones. It bums me out because weren’t we supposed to be over this by now? Actually melting together in our melting pot?

It’s not working, but the lottery isn’t the solution we need either. And it’s a stressful time-suck for the parents and students who have to research scores of schools, and who can’t be sure which (if any!) of their ultimate choices they’ll get. And maybe they get School X all the way over on the other side of town, and either Mom or Dad are hauling them, or they’re getting up at 5:30am to take two buses in order to get there on time.

School board president Mark Sanchez agrees that the lottery ain’t working, and this fall there’ll be discussions and probably changes.

Yippee.

Go where you will this weekend; just don’t move your car or the pride people will steal your space.

The Art of William Steig

See the career highlights of the man responsible for Pete’s a Pizza, and the original Shrek at this fascinating exhibit of Steig’s drawings, New Yorker covers, and other doodles.

When: Ongoing daily through 9/7 (museum is closed Wednesday); Age 7+; Free with paid admission (Free-$10).

Where: Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission Street (between Third and Fourth Streets), San Francisco, 415-655-7800, thecjm.org.

38th Annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration

The big parade starts moving down Market Street at 10:30 a.m. Sunday; hunker down early to get a good spot and once you’ve gotten an eyeful, move on to the afterparty at the Civic Center for food, music, vendor booths, and fun. If the crowd scene gets too hectic, drop in to the Family Garden for gentle kiddie fun: face-painting, games, arts and crafts, and the like.

When: Sun., 6/29, noon-7pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Parade goes from Market and Beale Streets to Market and Eighth Streets; Civic Center party is between Market, Van Ness, Leavenworth, and Turk Streets; (Family Garden is at Larkin and Grove); 415-864-0831; sfpride.org.

Peter & the Pirate

If your child has gotten bitten by the pirate bug, bring him to the San Francisco pier to meet Peter, Captain Bootleg, and Peter’s sea lion pal, Saline D. Ion, in this original maritime musical. Kids are invited to sing and dance with the cast.

When: Ongoing Saturdays and Sundays, 6/28-8/31 with shows at 11:30am and 1pm; All ages; Free-$15.95.

Where: Pier 39, Beach Street (at The Embarcadero), San Francisco, 415-433-3939, peterandthepirate.com.

Mrs. Grossman’s Company Store Annual Warehouse Store

Few local parents realize that Mrs. Grossman — she of the long, skinny sticker sheets that are sold in just about every toy store and pharmacy in America — is practically a local, and once a year the Petaluma warehouse sells deeply discounted stickers that make the sale worth the drive. No strollers allowed during the sale so leave very small kids at home and just bring the walking sticker freaks.

When: Fri., 6/27, 9am-5:30pm; Age 3+; Free.

Where: Mrs. Grossman’s Company Store, 3810 Cypress Drive (at South McDowell Boulevard), Petaluma, 800-429-4549, mrsgrossmans.com.

If you haven’t been by the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Japantown lately, you may not be aware that the store has beefed up its toy section, making the store a sublime place to shop for a birthday or shower gift. Just imagine the look of delight on a child’s face when she opens a box to find a tiny reproduction of a Mid-century Modern chair from the Reina Design Interior Collection! Actually, she should be grateful, the little brat, the things are all-but-unavailable online, sold out everywhere. But I digress.

Perhaps Princess would prefer the smiling, round Domino wooden figures or banks from You&I Toys, or the intense expression on the face of the Nara Yoshitomo-designed rolling dog toy from French toy makers Vilac. And surely no one could resist the pocket-size Sonny Angel Mini Figures, which come in Vegetable, Fruit, and Animal sets. You’ll be the only guest at the party to bring kewpie dolls with onions and cabbages on their heads, imagine!

All joking aside, all this stuff is pretty hard to find, even online, and to have it arrayed before you at the bookstore is pretty delicious. If the selection at Kinokuniya were bigger, the toy section would even rival that of the SFMOMA MuseumStore. And that’s saying something.

The Kinokuniya Bookstore’s San Francisco branch is located at 1581 Webster Street (at Post Street) in the Kintetsu Mall in Japantown, San Francisco. Call 415-567-7625 or visit bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp.

With the new season of Project Runway starting in just a few weeks, a lot of fledgling fashionistas out there are suddenly getting interested in crafting their own clothing. Are you handy enough with a sewing machine to handle all the gussets and godets your young designer is going to want to throw in? If not, time to call in the professionals.

Young designers who sign up for San Francisco’s Wee Scotty Fashion School Project Junior Runway class will create a garment from the ground up with the help of a Tim Gunn-like mentor. The fashions will then be presented in front of a panel of judges selected from local design companies, and the winners will go on to show their creations in a runway show at San Francisco Fashion Week.

Too much pressure? Wee Scotty also offers a full range of classes for kids from age five to teens. Choose from basic sewing skills classes, or take a project-based series and make your own sun dress, bubble skirt, or beach cover-up.

The next session of Project Junior Runway begins June 30; other classes run at various times throughout the year. Wee Scotty Fashion School is located at 1807 Divisadero Street (at Bush Street), San Francisco. Call 415-345-9200 or visit weescotty.com.

I know several San Francisco moms whose kids take swimming lessons at La Petit Baleen in San Bruno, so I assumed they’d be jumping ship for the new location in the Presidio.

“Absolutely not,” one mom assured me. “The kids fall asleep in the car on the ride home. And besides, if I drive to San Bruno, I can experience the wonder of Mollieland.”

Mollieland is the child-minding center at Mollie Stone’s (upscale, expensive) grocery store. As long as they stay in the store, parents can drop off their potty-trained kids aged 2-12 in a clean, attractive little room staffed by a smiling babysitter who urges them to play games, fiddle with the computers, color, or encrust something with stickers. The kids are on closed-circuit TV, so parents can stop by the monitors in the store and make sure their kids aren’t screaming.

It is so much fun, says my savvy mom friend, that her children regularly beg her to take them grocery shopping (!) and to leave them in Mollieland longer (!!), and my friend gets to slowly peruse all the types of cheese, and maybe even sit down and have a salad from the superbly appointed salad bar, in total, blessed silence. There’s a Peet’s coffee too.

Since I regularly find odd items in my cart due to my daughter’s sticky fingers, or my own distractedness, see you there.

Mollie Stone’s Market is located at the Bayhill Shopping Center, 851 Cherry Ave. (at Bayhill Dr.), San Bruno. Call 650-873-8075 or visit molliestones.com. There is another Mollieland at the San Mateo location, 49 42nd Ave. (at El Camino Real) but none in San Francisco. Hey, Mollie Stone’s: Where is the love?

Puppet shows, county fairs, star shows and a chance to let trained professionals wiggle and strap your car seat into submission.
Zanzibar Puppets present Cinderella

Extraordinary puppets, a classic story, and a swanky venue. Drag out the velvet dresses for this one.

When: Sat., 6/21, 11am, 1pm, and 3pm; Ages 3+; $15-25.

Where: Harry Denton’s Starlight Room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St. (at Sutter St.), San Francisco, 415-391-8619, zanzibarpuppets.com.

Alameda County Fair

Watch the pig races, join the pie-eating contest, and take a chance on the whirling rides — will your kid throw up cotton candy and corn dogs? It’s all part of the fun at this old fashioned fair. Admission is free for kids under 12 on Fridays and always free for kids under 6.

When: Fri. 6/20 to Sun. 7/6, 11am-10pm Mon.-Thu., 10am-10pm Fri.-Sun.; All ages; Free-$10.

Where: Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton Avenue, Pleasanton, 925-426- 7600, alamedacountyfair.com.

Lake Chabot’s 125th Anniversary Free Family Fun Day

The venerable planetarium/science center throws itself an anniversary party with admission, movies, free planetarium shows, and special space games, all free. Design a rocket, play space bingo, and kibbiz with Bill Nye the Science Guy.

When: Sat., 6/21, 10am-6pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Lake Chabot Space & Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd. (at Redwood Road), Oakland; 510-336-7300, chabotspace.org.

CPMC BabySteps Kick-Off Event

Oh, you got the carseat in your car — but is it in properly? Professionals give it a check at this launch party for a new California Pacific Medical Center parenting networking site. You can also get toys tested for toxic lead levels, eat a free healthy lunch, and enjoy a storytime and face painting for the kiddies.

When: Sun., 6/22, 12pm-2pm; All ages; Free.

Where: Fisher Family Hall in the Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. (at Presidio St.), San Francisco, cpmcbabysteps.org.

Fleet Week isn’t until October, but I’m sure you can find some excuse to lay out the long green for the Lidia sailor pants by San Francisco clothing company Ses Petites Mains.

Based in Noe Valley, Ses Petites Mains was launched by designer Beth Miles, who clearly has an eye both for fine fabric and just-so details. Lines are simple and classic; buttons are heavy and lustrous; colors are muted enough that everything in the store seems to go together.

And oh, the fabrics. Running your hands over a rack of Ses Petites Mains selections may just send you into fabric ecstasy, so easily can you imagine the silky cottons and pliable linens caressing your skin. Too bad you’ll have to settle for buying clothes for your daughter instead.

Ses Petites Mains clothing is available at many clothing boutiques in the Bay Area, including Fiddlesticks, Mabuhay, and Delilah Crown in San Francisco, or at online stores like Orange Button.