Are you looking for a way to teach your kids to help others? Would you like to find a way that you and your family can get involved in your community? Well, if you answered yes to either of these questions, you may be in luck because it just so happens that tomorrow (Saturday, November 19, 2016) is Family Volunteer Day. Family Volunteer Day is a nationwide event, designed by Points of Light and sponsored by the Walt Disney Company, that encourages families across the country to carry out acts of kindness and/or volunteer to complete projects for their local communities and neighborhoods.
In fact, if you’re in the Boston area, there is a local Family Volunteer Day event in Dorchester from 10:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. on Saturday (November 19, 2016.) This event, which is run by Boston Cares, will allow you and your family members ages 5 and up to help create basic engineering kits, make-your-own robot kits, and other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) kits for students in the Boston Public School System. For more information and/or to register for the event (registration is required), please visit the Family Volunteer Day page on the Boston Cares website.
And, if you are not in the Boston area, you can still find opportunities to volunteer in your local area by using the search feature on the Points of Light website.
The ghouls, goblins, and ghosts have all returned to whence they came but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the fun has to end. In fact, if you’re looking for a way that your kids can have some fun and learn something too, there are two events in the Boston area this weekend that will definitely help.
First, if you have a young woman in your family who loves science and engineering or you would really like to get your daughter interested in science and engineering, there’s probably no better event to spark a young girl’s interest in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) than Girls Day at the MIT Museum. This is because this biannual event, which is scheduled to take place from 11:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. on Saturday (November 5, 2016), will give your daughter the opportunity to meet women engineers, learn about robotics and coding, and even try building and programming some robots herself. For more information on Girls Day at the MIT Museum, which is included in the admission fee for the museum and open to all girls ages 10 and up, please visit the MIT Museum’s Engage page.
However, if you have a young boy, a group of children of different genders, or you just don’t want to pay to get into the Museum, you can always head over to a local Barnes and Noble this weekend. This is because Barnes and Noble is hosting their second annual Mini Maker Faire from 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. on Saturday and Sunday (November 5th and 6th, 2016). This event, which is free and open to the public, will allow you and your children ages 6 and up to meet designers, engineers, and teachers who will demonstrate their skills with coding, programmable music, robots, virtual reality, and a whole lot more. Best of all, the events at each store will feature games and other activities that will allow your children to create and experience the wonders of science firsthand. For more information on the Barnes and Noble Mini Maker Faire and/or to find a list of events for each store, please visit Barnes and Noble’s Mini Maker Faire page.
Friday the 13th is once again upon us, and it is certainly a day that many people dread. In fact, if you are one of the large number of individuals that is filled with nothing but disgust every time you hear the words “Friday” and the “13th” in the same sentence, you may be looking for something that you can do with your family after the day is over. Fortunately, if this is indeed the case, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department may have exactly what you are looking for. This is because the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and Mayor Martin J. Walsh are hosting the Boston Bubble Festival on Boston Common from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. tomorrow (Saturday, May 14, 2016). This event will allow you and your children to learn about the science behind bubbles, see live bubble demonstrations with some of the biggest floating bubbles you’ve ever seen, make your own bubbles at a series of bubble stations, listen to music, and participate in a wide variety of other kid-friendly activities. For more information on the Boston Bubble Festival, which is completely free and open to the public, please visit the Boston Bubble Festival’s Facebook page.
If you’re the parent of a school-aged child living somewhere in the Boston area, April Vacation can be tough. In fact, since we had typical April weather (rain, rain, and more rain) on Patriot’s Day (which may have been the only day you had off this week), there’s a pretty good chance that your kids have been cooped up in your house for the duration of their April vacation. And, if they’re like most kids, they’re probably driving you just a little bit insane by this point. Fortunately, if you’re looking for a way to get your kids out of the house so they can enjoy the end of their vacation, you’re in luck because there are a number of kid-friendly activities scheduled for this weekend.
First, if your kid is a big fan of animals and/or fairy tale princesses, you may want to head over to the Stone Zoo this weekend. This is because the Stone Zoo is hosting a Princess and Frog Day from 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. tomorrow (April 25, 2015.) This event will not only allow your kids to meet a number of different princesses from well-known fairy tales and Disney films but will also give your kids a chance to make some arts and crafts and learn about all the animals that the zoo has with a special focus on frogs. For more information on the Princess and Frog Day at the Stone Zoo, please visit the Zoo New England Events page.
If, on the other hand, your kids are big fans of the zoo but not such big fans of princesses, the Franklin Park Zoo may make more sense for your family this weekend. This is because the Franklin Park Zoo is hosting their annual Party for the Planet from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. today (April 24, 2015.) This celebration will feature special eco-friendly exhibits, scavenger hunts, and a number of other Earth Day-related activities in addition to everything the zoo typically has to offer. For more information on the Party for the Planet at the Franklin Park Zoo, please visit the Zoo New England Events page.
Finally, if your kids are into all things science (or you would really like them to be), you may want to check out the Cambridge Science Festival this weekend. The Cambridge Science Festival, which is sponsored by MIT but takes place throughout Cambridge and the surrounding area, features a series of activities, demonstrations, workshops, and tours that are designed to teach children and adults of all ages about a wide range of scientific and technological discoveries. Topics that will be covered at the festival this weekend include fashion technology, martial arts, math, optics, the science of sound and music, sky and space flight, web development, and a whole lot more. For more information on the Cambridge Science Festival, which ends on Sunday, please visit the Cambridge Science Festival 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.
