Posts Tagged ‘Classes’

A landmark 1990 study by the American Association of University Women showed something scary about American girls: by the time they’re in sixth grade, they associate masculinity with power and opportunity and femininity with reserve and restraint. No sexist pig has to keep these girls down; they’ll do it all by themselves.

But not if they can pilot a sea kayak with confidence, or rappel down the side of a cliff. Or, at least, that’s the thinking behind GirlVentures, a San Francisco non-profit that takes girls in 6th-9th grades on vigorous outdoor adventures designed to let them take risks that pay off. They hike, bike, climb mountains, they learn self-defense moves. They bond in the physical, exhilarating ways that are so often closed off to girls, and in doing so, GirlVentures hopes, they will be able to take a flying leap through any glass ceiling.

GirlVentures offers month-long classes on self-defense and urban hikes during the school year, as well as a once-a-week rock climbing class in the East Bay that’s developed a cult following. The prime summer offerings are two-week backcountry camping trips into the Sierra Nevadas. For more information, visit girlventures.org.

Do you have a budding Broadway baby? San Francisco performance company Musical Theatre Works has been holding classes and mounting shows for 12 years, providing a venue for theater-loving kids to get out there and show them what they’ve got. Younger kids (kindergarten and first grade) start out with theater games and songs; kids in grades 2-6 move into stagecraft and improv, and motivated kids aged 8-18 can audition for a space in the Main Stage Performance Company, which puts on several full-scale musicals yearly.

This fall, the little kids will be working on songs and dances from Mary Poppins, the medium-size kids are taking on Wicked, and the performance company will be putting its spin on the Wizard of Oz. Those classes start in September. There’s also a Theatre Works summer program, three three-week sessions in June, July, and August, for kids aged kindergarten to tenth grade.

All classes and performances are held at the Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way (at Roosevelt) in San Francisco. Call 415-641-5988 or visit musicaltheatreworks.org.

If you live in San Francisco and your child hasn’t taken a class at AcroSports yet, it’s probably because you didn’t even realize it was an option. But the circus-arts organization is justifiably one of the most popular recreation spots in the Bay Area, offering year-round classes for students from 18 months up. And what classes! Housed in a building that looks like an antique radio (it used to be a high school gym), AcroSports has an entire floor of child-proofed gymnastics equipment for kids to tumble through, jump up and down on, or climb. Each week, anything that can move is moved, creating a fresh new space to explore. Everything is padded, primary-colored, and deeply mesmerizing for children used to confining their acrobatics to apartment living rooms and dumbed-down playgrounds.

They can swing on a trapeze. They can bounce on a giant trampoline. They can climb up to the top of a wooden ladder and snatch a hankie, or roll back and forth in a foam barrel. Kids aged preschool and up get instruction on how to use equipment and perform advance moves (cartwheels, flips) as parents watch from the bleachers above the soaring second-floor practice space; younger kids are just allowed to roam free through the gymnastic jungle, followed by a song-and-movement circle time with parents.

One caution: once you sign up for an AcroSports series, your child will never want to quit; you’ll be on the hook for $250-ish courses four times a year. But this is the kind of whole-body exercise a parent can feel good about, particularly since it’s exercise you don’t have to provide yourself in the park on foggy days. Classes fill up quickly, particularly late-morning weekend spots and summer camps; register early!

AcroSports is located at 639 Frederick Street (between Stanyan and Arguello streets) in San Francisco. Call 415-665-2276 or visit acrosports.org.

If you want to enroll your child into a San Francisco Recreation and Parks class and don’t yet have a Family Account yet with SF Rec & Park, tomorrow is one of the few days when it’s relatively easy to do it. See, instead of having to drag a bunch of xeroxed documents down to McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park during working hours, you can drag those same documents to one of SF Rec’s temporary registration locations on a Saturday or evening. Still not fun, but easier than taking time off work.

Here’s what you have to bring, according to SF Rec:

• Proof of age: Copy of a birth certificate or passport for anyone under 18 years and 65 and over;
• Proof of residency: A utility bill that matches your address to your name or the name of the head of your household;
• State of California Driver’s License or Identification Card - Your utility bill must match this address and the name of the head of household;
• Emergency Contact Information;
• Proof of Immunization (for children under 5 years of age)

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. Sure you can’t make it any harder, SF Rec? Maybe make us bring our high school diplomas, or a list of our measurements?

Anyhoo, here are the locations of the temporary registration field offices. They will be open Saturday, August 23 from 10am - 3pm and Monday, August 25 through Friday, August 29 from 4-7pm.

• Richmond Recreation Center 251 18th Avene @ Clement Street
• Joe DiMaggio Playground (closed Mondays) 651 Lombard Street @ Mason Street
• Eureka Valley Recreation Center 100 Collingwood Street @18th Street
• SOMA/Eugene Friend Rec Center 270 6th Street @ Folsom Street
• Glen Park Recreation Center 70 Elk Street @ Chenery Street
• Mission Recreation Center 2450 Harrison Street @ 20th Street
• Palega Recreation Center 500 Felton Street @ Holyoke Street
• Sunset Recreation Center 2201 Lawton Street @ 29th Avenue
• Joseph Lee Recreation Center 1395 Mendell @ 3rd Street
• Randall Museum (closed Mondays) 199 Museum Way
• McLaren Lodge (M-F 9am-5pm) 501 Stanyan Street

If you go through the hassle, the rewards are substantial: literally hundreds of classes in a variety of disciplines (sports, the arts, music, food), located all over the city, many of them free or so low-cost that you can afford to take the kids out to lunch after your Saturday soccer or dance class.

For more information, call 831-6800 or visit sfreconline.com.

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.

School’s almost over, and if you don’t want your kid cluttering up the couch all day you’d better schedule him up. A fertile source of activities: the vast slate of classes and day camps offered by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks system. There are so many selections that you’ll probably find classes you’ve paid hundreds of dollars for offered free, or for a nominal fee.

Now, you can sign up for classes using SF Rec’s online portal, but the catch is that first you must have a “family account,” an enormous pain to get since you generally must take a raft of paperwork, in person, to McClaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park during business hours (read: the hours you work somewhere else). But for the next two weeks during open registration, you can instead visit SF Rec’s satellite offices (here are a list of those; call the location to confirm hours). You still must bring the same pile of paperwork, but at least now you don’t have to drive across town if you live far from GGP.

Once you have the account, signing up for classes is a cinch– and since getting the account is so difficult, most classes are wide open. Is your child interested in swimming? Ceramics? Yoga? Baking? Well, she might be, after this summer.