Tag: Boston Carnival Parade

Getting Your Kids Ready for School?

A Modern Girl in Civil War Clothing
With the end of summer just around the corner, kids and parents everywhere are getting ready for the new school year. However, there’s no reason that your kids necessarily need to abandon all the fun just yet. In fact, if you’re looking for a couple of fun, but somewhat educational activities that will help your kids get back into a learning mindset and have one last hurrah before the 2015 – 2016 school year starts, I may have just the events for you.

The first place that you may want to check out, especially if your kids are into history or you wish they were, is Georges Island. This is because Georges Island has a number of events specifically designed to teach kids about the Civil War. Some of the events that are scheduled to take place at Georges Island this weekend include an interactive kids’ tour of Fort Warren entitled “Storming the Fort”; a Civil War Dress-Up that will give your kids the opportunity to not only learn about some of the clothing that kids and adults would have worn during the Civil War but also to wear some of it; a Civil War Lawn Games event that will give your kids the opportunity to play some of the games that kids and adults played during the mid-1800’s; and the Legend of the Lady in Black, which will let you and your kids hear the story of Mrs. Andrew Lanier, a woman whose ghost has been said to haunt the fort since she was imprisoned there in the early 1860’s. For more information on the events at Georges Island, which are free and open to the public, please visit the Boston Harbor Islands’ Events page.

Carnival Dancer
The second place that you may want to check out, especially if you would like to expose your kids to a different culture, is the Boston Carnival Village. The Boston Carnival Village is a street festival that is specifically designed to create the same celebratory atmosphere that you would feel during Carnival in Trinidad. The biggest part of the festival is, of course, the Trini Style Carnival Parade, which begins at 1:00 P.M. tomorrow (Saturday, August 28, 2015) on Blue Hill Avenue in Boston and ends in front of the Franklin Park Zoo. This parade typically features Caribbean bands, dancers, and masqueraders in a huge assortment of colorful costumes marching by a festival filled with arts and crafts, food, CDs, DVDs, and more. For more information on the Boston Carnival Village, please visit the Boston Carnival Village website.

Girl in Civil War Dress Photo Credit: WalterPro4755 / Foter / CC BY
Carnival Dancer Photo Credit: LukePricePhotography / Foter / CC BY

The Back to School Blues (or the Back to School Jamboree?)

The Back to School Blues
If you had any doubt that the end of the summer was rapidly approaching, you could probably remove that doubt with a single look at the events for this weekend. In fact, with children heading back to school in the very near future, most places realize that it’s virtually impossible to get a large number of people at any event. As a result, a lot of event coordinators just seem to give up around this time of year, and there’s not a whole lot going on. However, regardless of whether you’re sad to see the summer go or you’re doing the childless cha-cha in honor of the new school year, there’s still time to have some fun this weekend.

First, if you’ve always wanted to go to Carnival, but you’ve never had the time, money, and/or the inclination to leave the country, you may want to check out the Boston Carnival Parade this weekend. The Boston Carnival Parade is a parade and street festival that is designed to give you the experience of what Carnival would be like in Trinidad without leaving the state of Massachusetts. The parade, which starts on Blue Hill Avenue in Boston, MA at 1:00 P.M. tomorrow (Saturday, August 23, 2014) and ends near the Franklin Park Zoo, features a number of Caribbean musicians, dancers, and masqueraders in costumes that are sure to get your attention. The street festival and food court, which is located right in front of the Franklin Park Zoo, will feature arts and crafts, food (including both Caribbean and traditional American cuisines), music, and more. For more information on the Boston Carnival Parade, which is also known as the Caribbean Festival Parade, please visit the Boston Carnival Village website.

Secondly, if you’re longing for a time not so long ago and not so far away when people took wooden ships onto the open sea, the Antique & Classic Boat Festival in Salem, MA may have exactly what you’re looking for. The Antique & Classic Boat Festival, which runs from 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. on Saturday (August 23, 2014) and 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. on Sunday (August 24, 2014), will feature artists, a crafts fair, music, a touch tank, a variety of antique and classic ships ranging anywhere from 50 to approximately 200 years old, and more. For more information on the Antique & Classic Boat Festival in Salem, MA, please visit the Antique & Classic Boat Festival website.

Finally, if you’re looking for something to do with your kids and they’re just suckers for a good Disney movie, especially one with a particularly well-known ice queen, the Hatch Shell in Boston will definitely put a smile on their faces tonight. This is because the last movie in this summer’s Free Friday Flicks series, presented by WBZ, is a sing-a-long version of the popular Disney film, Frozen. For more information on this completely free showing of Frozen at the Hatch Shell, which begins at sundown tonight (August 22, 2014), please visit the CBS Boston website.

Photo credit: Jlhopgood / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)