June 25th, 2009 larry
Last year we took our grandson to the Morton Arboretum to visit the Giant Bugs. We all thoroughly enjoyed the walk around the lake as we discussed each bug. This year’s summer follow up at the Arboretum is Animal Houses. Morton Arboretum is 11$ for adults, $8 for kids 2 to 17, and $10 for seniors. Wednesday is Discount Day and you pay $3 to $4 less for each person.
We took our grandson, almost 5 now, to see the 11 Animal Houses built to human scale so you can experience how animals live. They are built in 3 different habitats, the Woodland, Wetland and Prairie sections of the Arboretum. So, in order to visit every animal home, you must drive to these three different areas, allowing you to see how expansive and beautiful the Arboretum is. At each habitat, you park and walk to the homes which are immediately off the road.
The outside of the homes are built realistically trying to duplicate the materials the specific animal would use. Some are more true to life than others. We felt as if a raccoon had actually built his den, a beaver made his lodge in the pond, and I found my grandson on the blue heron’s nest pretending to hatch her eggs. Some of the other homes are not as impressive because the materials used are not realistic looking. The ant and squirrel homes were not as cleverly designed and our grandson even went back outside to get some leaves and branches to see if he could spruce up the squirrel home. However, there are tables and chairs built inside a couple of the animal homes, which made us giggle, so much for realism.
With each home, there is a placard with informative details about the specific animal and his home. Before leaving each habitat, there is a “mailbox” with questions about the homes in that specific environment that you should have learned during your visit. Our grandson looked forward to getting the questions out of the mailbox and coming up with the answers.
The Arboretum charges only one admission fee for each person, and then you are able to visit everything on the premises. So don’t forget to also take your child to the Children’s Garden which is both educational and fun to explore and climb. Animal Houses has some really great exhibits, but some of the habitats did not get the same attention to detail.
Review This Blog
Bubbie and Pa
Bubbie says: You don’t need to bring your own food. The cafeteria has nutritional and healthy meals for children and adults.
Pa says: Don’t go just for the Animal Houses. Make sure you visit the Children’s Garden.
Grandson says: I liked some of the houses. But, why couldn’t they make them bigger?
Posted in Venues | No Comments »
June 17th, 2009 larry
During the opening days of this year’s Taste of Chicago, Grant park will be host to the Dew Tour BMX Open. The competition will take place on June 26 and June 27. The Festival Village is free and open to the public. Tickets for a reserved seat for the individual events are as low as $15 and can get as high as $50. This is a great win for Chicago as the Dew Tour is the premier tournament for action sports in the US. I caught up with BJ Carretta, Director of Marketing for Alli Sports, to talk about the event and what we can expect.
“The Dew Tour is kind of the PGA of Action Sports,” explains BJ. The Dew Tour is a five-city tournament in the US that culminates in October to crown the Dew Cup champion. At each city, prizes are given for each individual competition but the athletes’ performance accumulates through all five tournaments. In the end, a Dew Cup Champion is crowned as well as an Athlete of the Year.
All of the competitions are freestyle based, not races. There are four distinct events in Grant Park this year: BMX Dirt, BMX Vert, BMX Street, and BMX Park. The Vert competition has the u-shaped platform that you might associate more with skateboarding. The Street and Park competition augment their steep hills and jumps with picnic tables, railngs, and walkways like you are flying through an actual city street or park. The Street competition is actually not part of the overall competition as they are trying something new. The Street competition will be a 3 man team competition that also includes a camera man. The race will be judged not only on the biking but also the 3-minute video results. 3-D graphs of the courses can be found on the Alli web site. Just follow the links on Crazykidschicago.com.
We saw an action sports exhibition last year at the Southport block party and it was riveting. They let our kid sit in the front row and he was absolutely mesmerized by the spinning, flipping, and jumping. It was really exciting for the kids and the parents. “There is no doubt that 12-24 year olds are probably following the sport a little more closely, but it is really a family event. It is exciting and fun. The athletes are just amazing,” says BJ. Most of the competitions will have one athlete on the course at a time, but then there are jam sessions with multiple riders on the course simultaneously. “The Friday night show might be the one to watch. Last year we had a double back flip and you might also see a quad whip (four rotations before landing),” advises BJ.
The competition will also feature a Festival Village at no charge. The Festival Village will have booths and attractions from various sponsors. There will be music, tattoos, art, and sample products from Toyota. New this year will be the Nerf sponsored Nerf Dart Tag course. Similar to a paint ball set up, this will allow younger kids to put on some gear and shoot Nerf darts at each other. “Our athletes are real interactive with the fans. There will be a lot of autograph signing, conversations with the athletes. The athletes are really personable when it comes to interacting with the kids,” says BJ.
The Dew Tour broke ground on June 17 and as soon as the courses are ready, the athletes will start practicing, probably most of the week of June 22. If you are passing by Grant Park, you could probably get a bit of a free exhibition as the athletes will be rehearsing their routines. Having seen a couple of these exhibitions in the past, I would definitely recommend checking the Dew Tour out and learning a little bit about the top athletes in biking like Ken Robinson, Mike Spinner, Dave Mirra, and Jamie Bestwick. Just watch your kid closely after attending that he isn’t building a BMX Vert course in your backyard.
Review Dew Tour
Larry
Posted in Events | No Comments »
June 10th, 2009 larry
I love that I get to meet dedicated, creative people who are running great little businesses for our children. This week I met Nora Shafer, the owner of Unicoi Art Studio in Roscoe Village. She has spent the last 10 years growing and refining the classes, camps, and parties for her studio. During the summer Unicoi will offer Summer Camp for children age 5-12 from June 15 thru August 28. You can go for 1 day or every day; morning, afternoon, or full-day; it’s up to you. Camp consists of art, drama, free play, park time and lunch. In the late afternoon the studio will have a full range of drop-off art classes for pre-schoolers to teenagers. You can register at any time during the session and drop-ins are welcome with 24 hours notice.
If you are looking for a new place to have a birthday party, Unicoi will host at the studio or bring everything to the location of your choice. All events are unique and customized to your child’s interest. Nora showed me photos from a recent superheros themed birthday where the children made adorable hero statues. You bring the cake, they supply the activity. Sounds good to me.
This past week I took my son to an art class for 3 to 5 year olds called Happy Hands. It was the last class of the session in which the kids had experienced a wide rage of mediums, techniques, and themes. Nora, an art educator, taught the class with her mother Judy, who is an artist. On this day the project was an Asian Scroll. The children began by tracing an image onto rice paper that had been coated with gelatin. To help them with the concept of tracing Nora told them to, “Pretend you’re a race car and you have to stay on the track.” They then used watercolors to paint their image, all the while being encouraged to paint within the lines and rinse the brush between colors. While the paint was drying the kids went into the kitchen area to wash hands and have a snack together. Judy sat with the kids, told them a story, asked them about themselves. From the next room I listened to the kids chatting away, it was very cute. After snack, the kids came back and finished the project, gluing their paintings onto pretty colored paper. The class begins and ends with free play in the toy area. Overall the class was a nice combination of art and socialization. (I do want to emphasize that this day’s project was far more “product” oriented then anything my preschooler had ever done. It did not bother me, but I know some parents might not want this for their kids until they are a bit older.)
Classes range in size, with a maximum of approximately 10 students. Every class has 2-4 teachers so the kids get a lot of individual attention. I can picture these teachers being excellent with their older students. Seeing the way they worked with the little guys makes me believe that they will really challenge preteens and teenagers. To me this is very positive, because if your child has enough interest in art to attend classes at a studio like this, you want them to learn new things. The teachers here are working artists and art educators who have a passion for art and for Unicoi Studio. If you want to expand your child’s art experiences I would highly recommend Unicoi.
Review This Blog
Posted in Venues | 1 Comment »
June 3rd, 2009 larry
The Oceanarium has reopened over at the Shedd Aquarium with some new features for kids, so we went and checked it out this past weekend. The upstairs of the Oceanarium is virtually unchanged, with the exception of additional seating for the dolphin show. The new Polar Play Zone and a snack shop are located downstairs in the underwater viewing area for the whales and dolphins. Total Experience tickets cost $24.95 for adults and $21.95 for kids.
The Shedd has been raising funds through a campaign called Making Waves to upgrade the animal care technology, produce new shows in the Oceanarium, and create new habitats and exhibits. The Polar Play Zone is part of this expansion and fund raising effort. It consists of three new interactive activities for kids.
First, there is a starfish petting zoo where kids can touch an actual starfish. There were a lot of crazy and gruesome looks on kids’ faces as they stuck a finger in the water to touch the animals. In this same area, you can play with some fake fish in water and look through handheld underwater viewers.
Always a favorite with our kid is the penguin area. Now kids can actually be a penguin. The Shedd now provides penguin costumes for your kids to dress up in. They can then climb on what looks like a replica of the penguin habitat. There are tunnels to crawl through and they can slide down a blue slide on their tummy just like the penguins do. Kids can play with pretend penguin eggs and stuffed animals of penguin families. Our kid was mesmerized by the penguin eggs which crack open to show baby penguins. It is then a kind of puzzle to try and put the egg back together. You’ll want to take pictures of your kid in the penguin costume.
Finally, just down the hall from the penguins, is a new submarine. There are plenty of buttons to push that make the submarine propeller stop and start and turn on lights and gizmos. There are also nerf scuba dive tanks and masks that the kids can wear.
We have to admit, on the surface we did not think that the new play zone was that exciting. Yet we could not get our kid to leave and must have been downstairs in the Polar Play Zone for more than 2 hours. It is hard to say if he liked the submarine better than the penguins, but he proudly wore the dive tank on his back for at least an hour. The Aquarium and the Oceanarium are still amazing places to visit, but now there is this fun place for young kids. We think children about 6 years and under will have a great time in the new play area. We would recommend going early or late in the day as there are a limited number of penguin costumes, dive tanks, and space in the submarine to go around during crowded midday hours.
There is more to come in the re imagined Oceanarium. By the end of the summer there will be a completely new whale and dolphin show. They are promising it will be more theatrical and entertaining then the old show (if you saw it before you’ll remember it was a bit of a snooze). Starting July 3rd they will also offer the very high end Extraordinary Experiences. Trainer for a Day will allow your family to go behind the scenes with the marine mammal trainer. The 4 hour experience costs $350 per person and is limited to persons 12 and older.
Review The Shedd Aquarium
Mom Says: The Shedd has always been great, the new Polar Play Zone makes it more fun. Is it worth a special trip just to see the new stuff? No. But the next time you have family/friends in town or are really in the mood to do the entire Shedd you will enjoy the additions. There is a Community Discount Week from June 14-19, 2009. During this week General Admission is free and packages to see the Oceanarium, Wild Reef, etc. will cost $16.95 for adults and $11.95 for children.
Dad Says: I think I sat on the reef rock for an hour and half watching the kid press buttons on the submarine, pretending to be the captain, and pretending to swim under water with the dive tank. He had a fantastic time.
Posted in Venues | No Comments »