With Christmas now only a week and a half away, time is rapidly running out to finish up all of your shopping and wrap all of those gifts. In fact, if you have just looked at your list and realized that you forgot someone or that you still haven’t found gifts for some of the people that are hard to shop for, you may be starting to reach that point of panic. However, there’s no reason to fear the fact that Santa is coming to town because if you need some gifts quick, one of the easiest ways to grab some gifts (and help out a local non-profit at the same time) is to purchase a membership to a local public garden, museum, or zoo for your friend or family member.
Local public gardens, museums, and zoos typically offer annual memberships that will give your friend or family member a number of benefits including free or discounted admission, discounts on purchases in the gift shop or other similar locations, invitations to special members-only events, and a variety of other perks. In fact, many gardens, museums, and zoos actually have reciprocal agreements with other similar institutions so that if you have a membership for one garden, museum, or zoo, you may be able to use it to get free or discounted admission at another garden, museum, or zoo (although, it is important to note that only some institutions will accept memberships from other institutions, and there may be some additional conditions that apply in some cases.) Best of all, you don’t even need to leave your house to get one. All you need to know is your friend or family member’s address and the website of the organization you want to get them a membership from such as the Museum of Science or Zoo New England.
Do you park your car in Harvard Yard or do you pahk your cah in Hahvuhd Yahd? If you’re from anywhere in the vicinity of the Boston area, you’ve probably heard this phrase or some version of it at some point. In fact, it’s pretty much a guarantee that someone somewhere will ask you to demonstrate your Boston accent like you’re a trained chimpanzee whose sole purpose is to amuse the person who probably has an accent thicker than you do. Unfortunately, when you are presented with this question, you really only have two options: get mad and refuse or say the phrase. However, if you would like to shock and awe all of the people who ask to hear your accent, you may want to consider either learning to eliminate your accent (which will really shock them when you say the phrase in a way they are totally not expecting) or you can embrace your Boston heritage and brush up on your accent (thereby making sure that your accent is wicked pissa).
First, if you would like to lose your accent, you may want to consider taking a course at the Boston Center for Adult Education (BCAE). This is because the BCAE is offering a course entitled “Lose Your Boston Accent” from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. tomorrow (Saturday, November 21, 2015). This course, which is primarily designed for actors and other professionals who may need to speak in a more generic dialect, will teach you to pronounce your r’s, pronounce certain vowel sounds differently, and lose some of the Boston slang we’ve all come to know and love. For more information on the Lose Your Boston Accent course at the BCAE, please visit the Boston Center for Adult Education’s website.
If, on the other hand, you would like to embrace your heritage and really work on improving your accent, there’s no better way than spending some time in the city itself. And, if you would like to spend some time in the city itself and enjoy everything Boston has to offer, you may want to check out Boston CityPASS. Boston CityPASS is a program that will allow you to buy a booklet of tickets to some of the most popular museums in Boston at an extremely discounted price. In fact, this program will allow you to get tickets to four attractions, including the Museum of Science, the Museum of Fine Arts, the New England Aquarium, and either the Harvard Museum of Natural History or the Skywalk Observatory for a single fee that’s pretty close to half the price you would normally pay to get into all four museums. For more information on the Boston CityPASS program, please visit the Official Boston CityPASS website.
Chances are, you’ve probably heard the phrase “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” somewhere before. In fact, if you have been anywhere on the east coast of the United States this week, you have probably not only heard the phrase, but also realized that truer words have never been spoken. This is because our bodies and the bodies of almost all warm-blooded animals are able to cool themselves better in dry weather than humid weather. As a result, it’s much harder for everyone to cool off when it’s hot and humid, and many of us turn to our air conditioners looking for the relief we seek. The only problem is that you can’t really take your air conditioner everywhere you go unless you’re planning to sit in your car all day, so when it is really gross out like it has been this week, you may have trouble finding the ambition to leave your home. Fortunately, if you and your kids have spent all week in your house praising Robert S. Sherman, the man that invented the first portable, window air conditioner, you’ll be happy to know that there are a number of events this weekend that will let your family get outside and enjoy the nice weather that we’re supposed to have.
First, if you’re looking for a fun but educational way to enjoy the nice weather, you may want to consider a Salem Kids Walking Tour. A Salem Kids Walking Tour is a special tour that is specifically designed to let children, ages 6 and up, experience all of the history and mystery that the Witch City has to offer. These tours, which typically take place on Saturday mornings from 10:45 A.M. to approximately 11:45 A.M., will allow you and your kids to wander the city with a licensed tour guide in full puritan garb while you hear stories about the people, locations, and superstitions that have helped to make the city famous. For more information on the Salem Kids Walking Tours, which begin at Wicked Good Books at 215 Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts, please visit the Salem Kids Tours website or stop by Wicked Good Books.
Secondly, if you think a tour would bore your kids out of their minds or they would be tired of walking after about 15 minutes, you might want to let your kids Play the Day Away at the Lawn on D. The Lawn on D, located at 420 D Street in Boston, is hosting a Play the Day Away event specifically for kids from 12:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. on Saturday (July 18, 2015.) This event will allow your kids to try their hand at arts and crafts, play a variety of different games, and enjoy interactive sculptures and works of art from the Boston Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science, and more. For more information on Play the Day Away at the Lawn on D, which is completely free to attend, please visit the Lawn on D’s Calendar of Events page.
Finally, if the only way that you’re going to get your kids away from their computer screen or their TV screen is to stick them in front of an even bigger screen, you may want to head over to the Prudential Center in Boston this weekend. This is because the Prudential Center is showing Frozen as part of the Mix 106.7 Family Film Festival at sundown on Saturday (July 18, 2015) in their South Garden. This event, which begins at approximately 6:00 P.M., will allow you and your family to enjoy a series of children’s activities, giveaways, pre-movie entertainment, and, of course, see the beloved Disney film that tells the tale of the Snow Queen, Elsa, and her sister Anna. For more information on the Mix 106.7 Family Film Festival at the Prudential Center, including upcoming shows, please visit the Prudential Center’s Events page.
Parenting can be an extremely rewarding experience, but it can also be pretty tough because there is an amazing amount of work involved in raising a child. In fact, the average parent is regularly required to juggle work and home schedules, pay extra bills to clothe and feed their children, take care of their children when they are sick or upset, and perform a variety of other tasks with little or no sleep. However, one of the issues that many parents come up against in the wintertime is how to get their child to do something other than stare at a computer screen or a TV screen when sending them outside could potentially cause them to get frostbite in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, if you are looking for some ways to get your kids out of the house and away from their screens this weekend, there are a number of events in the Boston area that will help you do exactly that.
First, if your child is a fan of scavenger hunts and/or science, there is no better place to be this weekend than the Museum of Science. This is because the Museum of Science, with the help of Watson Adventures, is hosting the Mad Science Family Scavenger Hunt at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday (January 17, 2015.) This scavenger hunt will allow you and your family to search the museum for all of the best exhibits, including dinosaurs, hidden messages, a mad scientist’s laboratory, musical zebras, optical illusions, snakes, and more. For more information and/or to order tickets (which include admission to the museum), please visit the Watson Adventures’ Mad Science Family Scavenger Hunt webpage.
Secondly, if your child is more into comedy than chemistry, you may want to check out the Airborne Comedians. The Airborne Comedians, who are performing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline at 10:30 A.M. on Sunday (January 18, 2015), are a pair of globetrotting jugglers. These jugglers will toss and catch everything from bird baths to lawn chairs while they crack jokes on unicycles (yes, you read that correctly. They will be balancing on unicycles while they juggle and joke.) For more information and/or to order tickets for the Airborne Comedians’ show at Coolidge Corner Theatre, please visit the Coolidge Corner Theatre website.
Finally, if your child would prefer a good fairy tale to some learning or laughs, you may want to try the BCA Black Box Theatre in Boston. This is because the imaginary beasts are performing Kerplop! The Tale of the Frog Prince at the BCA Black Box Theatre every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from January 17, 2015 to February 7, 2015. This show will give you and your children the opportunity to see a Panto retelling of the classic story of an unfortunate prince who is turned into a frog and has to convince a princess to kiss him. For more information and/or to order tickets for Kerplop! The Tale of the Frog Prince, please visit the Boston Theatre Scene website.
There’s a pretty good chance that you’ve heard the expression “blinded by science” somewhere. In fact, if you were around during the 80’s, you may have heard the song by Thomas Dolby entitled “She Blinded Me With Science” or the Foreigner song entitled “Blinded by Science.” You may have even heard the song or the phrase more recently in well-known shows like Breaking Bad or the Crazy Ones. However, even if you are familiar with the expression, have you ever stopped to figure out what it means? Well, if you haven’t, the expression “blinded by science” refers to the act of using a series of complicated concepts (or, at least, concepts that appear to be complicated) to intentionally confuse someone. In other words, if you are “blinding someone with science,” you are using your scientific knowledge (or your skill at making stuff up) to leave someone completely baffled.
Now, if you would like to have the scientific knowledge to blind someone with science or you enjoy when other people blind you with science, there are a couple of events this weekend that you should definitely check out. First, the MIT Museum, in collaboration with a number of local businesses, educational institutions, and community organizations, is hosting the Cambridge Science Festival. This festival, which began last weekend and runs until this Sunday (April 27, 2014), will allow you and your family to attend a series of activities, performances, and workshops to learn about holograms, math, optics, space, and a whole lot more. For more information on the festival and/or to register for a specific event, please visit the MIT Museum website or the Cambridge Science Festival website.
Secondly, if you can’t make it into the city until later and/or you’ve always wanted to learn more about the stars, the Museum of Science has the program for you. This is because the Museum of Science offers a special program on Friday nights from the beginning of March to Thanksgiving called Astronomy After Hours. This program, which runs from 8:30 to 10:00 PM every Friday (weather permitting), will allow you and your family to see stars, planets, and all of the other wonders of space through the equipment at the Gilliland Observatory. Best of all, the program is open to the public and is completely free. For more information on the Astronomy After Hours program, please visit the Museum of Science website or call the Astronomy After Hours hotline at 617-589-0267.
Learning doesn’t have to be this way. Contrary to popular belief, it can actually be fun.
If you live anywhere in the United States, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve seen the slogan “Reading is FUNdamental” somewhere.In fact, this slogan, which was created by a literacy group called Reading is Fundamental, Inc., has been in wide-spread use since 1966.As a result, anyone under the age of 48 has quite literally had their entire lifetime to hear the organization’s motto and, hopefully, recognize its meaning.However, even though reading is essential to our understanding of the world around us, it is not the only way that people can have fun learning new things.You may, therefore, be interested in some of the ways that you can learn new things and have fun at the same time this weekend.
First, have you and/or your children ever wanted to design your own car or another similar type of vehicle? Well, if you have, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) Space will give you the chance at its monthly Family Design Day this Saturday, January 11th from 10:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M.This month’s BSA Space’s Family Design Day, which is entitled Rights of Way: Mobility and the City, will allow children ages 5 to 13 and their parents to see how people move through the city, how the city itself has changed as a result of the way people move, and how future changes to the city and the transportation system may improve the way everyone moves from place to place.Best of all, each family will be able to use the information that they learn from the exhibits to design their own vehicles out of recycled materials.For more information on the program and/or to register for the event, please visit the Family Design Day Eventbrite website or the Learning by Design in Massachusetts website.
Secondly, if you and/or your kids aren’t really into cars or architectural design, but you’re always up for some science, there’s no better place to go than the Museum of the Science.The Museum of Science, which is open every day from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.(with some special nighttime shows on weekends) will give your entire family the opportunity to learn about animals, color, computers, dinosaurs, energy conservation, engineering, light, lightning, mapmaking, math, nanotechnology, optical illusions, the tools and methods that scientists use, the universe, weather forecasting, wind power and other types of renewable energy, x-rays, and a whole lot more.For more information on the Museum of Science, the events that are currently taking place at the Museum, and/or to order tickets, please visit the Official Museum of Science website.
Finally, it is important to remember that there is one thing that you may want to avoid if you are planning to head into Boston with your kids this Sunday, and that thing is the “T.”Why avoid the “T” you might ask?Well, you see, this Sunday is BostonSOS’s and Improv Everywhere’s Annual No Pants Subway Ride.This event, which is exactly what it sounds like, will have a number of people riding the subway throughout the day in their underwear.As a result, unless you want your children to learn that people are really weird (and potentially scar your children for life), you may want to find another way into the city.For more information on how to avoid the Annual No Pants Subway Ride or, if you’re crazy enough, participate in it, please visit the Boston No Pants Subway Ride Facebook page.
Just in case you’ve been working too hard to actually look at a calendar, this weekend is Labor Day weekend. As a result, it’s a time to sit back, relax, and eat more burgers, steak, hot dogs, and other food than you would typically ever think possible. In fact, Labor Day is the third most popular day to have a cookout trailing only slightly behind Memorial Day and way behind the Fourth of July. However, if barbecues aren’t really your thing (and I have trouble understanding how that could actually be the case) or you’re looking for something to do before or after your BBQ this weekend, here are a couple of things that you may want to check out.
First, if you’re looking for something that you can do earlier in the day and you’ve always wanted to know what it was like to swab the decks, the U.S.S. Constitution Museum has the exhibit for you. The U.S.S. Constitution Museum currently has an exhibit entitled All Hands on Deck: A Sailor’s Life in 1812. This exhibit will allow you to see what it was like to furl a sail in strong winds, sleep in a hammock, swab the deck, and ultimately what it was like to live aboard the U.S.S. Constitution during the War of 1812. Best of all, the exhibit is included in the regular fee to see the museum, which is only $5 for adults and $2 for children. For more information on the exhibit, please visit the U.S.S. Constitution Museum website.
Secondly, if you’re looking for something that you can do later in the day or you’re thinking that swabbing the decks is best left to the professionals, you can always go see a laser show at the Museum of Science. The Museum of Science currently has three laser shows running every Friday and Saturday night from now until the beginning of September (with extra shows this Sunday and Monday.) These shows, which each last about 40 minutes, will allow you to listen to the music of Queen, Pink Floyd, or even Justin Bieber (*cringe*) while you watch the museum’s highly advanced planetarium display lights and laser images that go along with the music. I have to admit that these light shows are one of my favorite things about the Museum of Science, and they are definitely worth a look. For more information on each of the shows, please visit the Museum of Science’s Planetarium page.
