Kids Culture 04.24.14
Healthy Kids Day
Saturday is Healthy Kids Day at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, and there will be free activities for the whole family starting at 9 a.m., when mothers with babies have been invited to join in an outdoor workshop. Family games like relay races and hula hoop contests are planned from 10 to 11 a.m., and at 11 there will be an open house for the Y.M.C.A. summer camp, offering a preview of what’s in store for campers ages 3 to 13, including a rock wall, bounce castle, games, and arts and crafts.
At noon, there will be an informational session on the RECenter’s swim lessons and the Y.M.C.A. Hurricanes swim team. An ocean rescue water safety presentation is scheduled for 1 p.m., and from 2 to 3 p.m. there will be open swim time for families.
This year, the camp will participate in a nationwide effort to combat the “summer slide” in reading that generally takes place when kids are out of school. A half-hour of reading will be incorporated in each camper’s daily schedule. To help with this effort, the Y is taking donations of children’s books starting on Saturday.
National Day of Puppetry
The Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre in Sag Harbor will celebrate the National Day of Puppetry Saturday with a morning of free fun. Kids from the theater’s Puppet Club will present their own puppet show at 11 a.m. Following that there will be a puppet-making workshop and an appearance by the Goat’s Minkie the Monkey.
Adventures and Experiments
An excursion around Trout Pond in Noyac for older children and a chance for little kids to learn about why water is important are on the schedule on Saturday at the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton this week. Crystal Possehl will lead the Trout Pond adventure starting at 10 a.m., paying close attention to early spring plants, invertebrates, and amphibians along the trail. Kids 8 to 12 will borrow backpacks full of explorer tools.
Why do we need water? Why does it rain? How big is the ocean? Parents familiar with these sorts of questions about the natural world may want to sign their 3 to 5-year-olds up for a water program at the museum at 10 a.m., when kids will get some answers to their water questions and conduct a few simple experiments. Reservations are required for both programs.
Papermaking, Libros
Standouts among the local library offerings this week are a papermaking workshop at the Amagansett Library on Saturday and a Spanish and English story and craft time at the East Hampton Library on Wednesday.
In Amagansett, children in kindergarten through sixth grade can make new paper from old in a recycled-papermaking session starting at 3:30 p.m.
The Spanish-English book celebration in East Hampton runs from 4 to 5 p.m. and includes readings of stories in both languages for kids 4 and up followed by a craft.