Hi everyone
President’s Day weekend and the mid-winter break is almost here for NYC public school children and the calendar is packed with fun family events.
This weekend there are lots of Chinese New Year, Black History, President and Valentine events happening in NYC like Chinese New Year with Puppetry in Practice at Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Valentine Fun! with Amy Miles at OS Cafe, Chinese Theater Works program/workshop at the Sunset Park at the Brooklyn Public Library, Love & Joy: A Family Valentine at ShapeShifter Lab, a Washington’s Birthday Ball at at Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden and Feraba African Rhythm Tap Duet at the Central Brooklyn Public Library.
Also happening this weekend is an Ice Festival in Central Park, Ponycon 2015 at St. Francis College, The LEGO Movie in 3D at the New York Hall of Science, a Family Performance: “English Sword Ale” at the Brooklyn Museum, The Gustafer Yellowgold Show at Symphony Space and CAMBUYÓN at The New Victory Theater.
There are some great events starting on Monday for the mid-winter break like February Break Discovery Week at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, February School Vacation Week at Dimenna Children’s History Museum and Intrepid Museum’s Kids Week 2015.
The calendar is packed so check it out to see what else is happening this weekend in Brooklyn & NYC! Remember to like us on Facebook for last minute events and news!
Enjoy the long weekend!
~ Deirdre (mom to O & C)
Friday February 13th
Valentine Fun! with Amy Miles at OS Cafe (South Slope, Park Slope)
Fri Feb 13th 2 sets 10a & 11a. $10. If you’re looking for a place to get cozy and warm , come down to OS Cafe this Friday for some festive fun!! Javed has great coffee and awesome Valentine treats!!!
New Parent Meet-Up at LARK (Flatbush/Prospect Park South)
Fridays 1-2p. Free. There seems to be a lovely little baby boom in our neighborhood of late. We’d love to offer our separate space on FRIDAY between 1-2pm for a new parent gathering. Come meet other new moms and dads and make some lasting connections with your neighbors! The first few months can be so difficult and isolating and it’s such a victory when you can get out of the house if only for one hour, so we hope you’ll join us.
Mad Scientist Spaceship: Music at the Brooklyn Public Library (Bay Ridge)
Fri Feb 13th 330-5p. Free. Explore the science of hearing, rhythm, and music. Practice your beat-mixing and learn about the different scales and tone systems. For kids 6 and up. Younger children must be supervised.
Chinese Theater Works program/workshop at Brooklyn Public Library (Sunset Park)
Fri Feb 13th 330-530p. Free. The program includes hand puppet vignettes, many based on popular songs and well-known Chinese sayings. While some parts of the program are based in Chinese, all include English translations. A second program, The Paper Cutting Craft Workshop, is for children, ages 8 to 12 years of age. Here, original paper cutting patterns feature animal figures such as the dragon, bear, and rabbit. Children will learn from drawing, cutting, and coloring.
For more Friday events please click here!
Saturday February 14th
The Gustafer Yellowgold Show at Symphony Space (UWS)
Sat Feb 14th 11a. Adults $26, Members $22, Kids $16, Members $14.
Don’t miss this insanely creative combination of catchy original songs performed by a live band, accompanying beautifully animated on-screen illustrations of a sun creature and his earthly friends. A perennial Just Kidding favorite, the annual Gustafer Yellowgold experience is not to be missed!
The Saturday Morning Show at Hudson Eats (Battery Park)
Saturdays 11a-1p until March 14th. Free. For ages 8 and under. Location: Hudson Eats at Brookfield Place Located in the back seating area. Looking for some educational fun with the kids this winter? Brookfield Place is launching a six-week variety showcase over breakfast in Hudson Eats that will feature a combination of interactive live music, games, story time, puppetry, magic and more. Think Ed Sullivan Show for pre-nap set. Kids and parents are encouraged to participate! Performances at 11a LuAnn Adams, Storyteller & 12p Bilingual Birdies. See website for all the details.
Feraba African Rhythm Tap Duet at the Brooklyn Central Public Library (Grand Army Plaza)
Sat Feb 14th 1-2p. Dweck Center. Free. Let’s dance together, let’s drum together, let’s sing together with Feraba. Join Ibrahima Kolipe Camara, a native from Guinea, West Africa and Irene Koloseus, dancer and choreographer as they celebrate Black History month. The two perform dances, rhythms and songs from Guinea as well as honoring tap dance – an art form – created in America. Learn how American tap dance has its roots in African music and dance. Join the fun during this highly interactive performance! African “shakers” and small drums will be provided for toddlers, youngsters, and their families.
Chinese New Year with Puppetry in Practice at Brooklyn Children’s Museum (Crown Heights)
Sat Feb 14th 2-240p. For all ages. Free with museum admission.
Cultural Connections Performance: Chinese New Year with Puppetry in Practice
Puppetry In Practice will celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with an exciting festival at Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The festival begins with a story about the Chinese zodiac told with shadow puppets. The story will be followed by a Dragon Walk workshop in which a large Chinese dragon puppet, paraded by 14 Museum visitors, travels through the entire Museum. Decorate a small, red paper square and write your wishes to feed to the dragon.
Ice Festival in Central Park
Sat Feb 14th 3-7p. Open to all ages. Free; RSVP via Eventbrite is strongly recommended but not required. Onsite registration is also available. No bag/coat check available. Quiet Events requires an ID or credit card to check out a pair of headphones. This Valentine’s Day, celebrate your love of Central Park at our fourth annual Ice Festival. Witness ice-carving artists from Okamoto Studio use electric chain saws, chisels, and picks to transform more than 3,000 pounds of ice into a glistening replica of the Park’s most romantic statue ― Romeo and Juliet by Milton Hebald (1966). As night falls, revel among colorful lights as the Mall becomes a 1980s-themed silent disco with live DJs, all as part of Central Park Conservancy’s 35th Anniversary celebration. Bites, treats, and other food truck fare for purchase by Milk Truck, Waffles and Dinges, and Uncle Gussy’s. Location: Naumburg Bandshell, Mid-Park at 72nd Street. See website for full schedule.
For more Saturday events please click here!
Sunday February 15th
Jonathan Toubin Kids New York Night Train Soul Clap and Family Dance Off at Brooklyn Bowl (Williamsburg)
Sun Feb 15th doors 1030a. Tickets $15-$35. See website for details. Proceeds from the event will be donated to children’s music charity, The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. Jonathan Toubin’s Kids New York Night Train Soul Clap Family Dance Off presented by the Rock and Roll Playhouse. Dance Party: 11a-12p, Guitar Strap Art Activity for Kids with Charlotte Holst Douglas: 1230p-1p.
Love & Joy: A Family Valentine at ShapeShifter Lab (Gowanus)
Sun Feb 15th doors 11a. A fun-filled event for all ages. Tickets: $11.34 ($10 + fee) available here or $15 at door. Warm up this Valentine’s Day weekend with the family by celebrating Love & Joy with music from Jon Samson and Lucy Kalantari. Enjoy two rare and enchanting performances with live bands, hot cocoa, valentine’s treats and a chance to win an autographed ukulele! Lucy Kalantari plays 1130a & Jon Samson plays at 1230p.
Washington’s Birthday Ball at at Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden (UES)
Sun Feb 15th 1-3p. All ages welcome. Tickets: $15 Adults, $10 Members & Children under 12. Celebrate the birthday of our Nation’s First President with live music and dance as New Yorkers did in the 19th century. Costumed dancers will perform and teach traditional and country dances and encourage everyone to join in. Festivities include toasts to George Washington, historic refreshments, and Museum tours.
Family Performance: “English Sword Ale” at the Brooklyn Museum (Prospect Heights/Crown Heights)
Sun Feb 15th 230p. Free with Museum admission. Location: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor. Intricate patterns, footwork, and music from the British Isles are presented by Half Moon Sword of New York City and eleven other English folk dance groups from around the country. Traditionally performed at winter “ales” in the farming and coal-mining regions of northern England, you’ll see stately longsword dances from North England and Scotland and faster rapper dances performed with double-handled swords to Irish jigs. See website for other performances in Brooklyn & Manhattan.
Cultural Connections Performance: Master Lee at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum (Crown Heights)
Sun Feb 15th 3p. For ages 6 and up. Free with museum admission.
Gung Hei Fat Choi! Today we’re going to party like it’s 2199! Celebrate the Chinese New Years (Spring Festival or Lunar Festival) with Master Lee! Hear storytelling, learn ancient Chinese traditions and bring in the Year of the Goat. Master Lee has won the MothSlam twice and told his story on The Moth Audience Favorites CD. He is the co-creator of Talkingstick, a true story series at the Rubin Museum that has been running for the last 9 years.
For more Sunday events please click here!
Monday February 16th
Intrepid Museum’s Kids Week 2015 (Midtown West)
Mon Feb 16th 10a-5p and everyday until Saturday Feb 21st. Kids Week activities, including planetarium presentations and special Tour Guide Talks, are free with general admission. Regular Museum activities such as Guided Tours and simulator rides require an additional fee. Take off for Kids Week at the Intrepid Museum! Kids Week is six days of fun-filled activities, hands-on engineering workshops, live shows and much more, all exploring FLIGHT. From the science of aviation to sustaining life in outer space, every day offers unique opportunities for discovery. Kids can learn how to grow food in space, create their own telescopes and master the physics of flight while making a perfect paper airplane. Families can learn about the stars in our pop-up planetarium, watch exciting science demonstrations or brace for a breathtaking display with live birds of prey. Each day features special guests and award-winning children’s book authors. Come investigate, tinker, play and imagine a soaring future!
February Break Discovery Days at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Crown Heights)
Mon Feb 16th 11a-1p and also Tue-Wed Feb 17th-18th. Free for all ages.
Explore exotic habitats from around the world and have some hands-on science fun during the midwinter school break. Families can learn together at Discovery stations inside BBG’s Steinhardt Conservatory as kids use their senses to investigate plants and objects firsthand and find out how plants survive in environments from deserts to rainforests. Explore the lush conservatories on scavenger hunts, listen to stories, and pot up a plant to bring home. Note: Activities are the same each day, but feel free to come for a repeat visit.
Who is the President? at Brooklyn Children’s Museum (Crown Heights)
Mon Feb 16th 1130a & 230p. Free with museum admission.
Learn about different community helpers, from firefighters to teachers to the President of the United States, and discover what their jobs involve. Create an art activity to celebrate what you want to be when you grow up.
Child’s Play NY: Let’s Play! Fairy Tale Theater at Area Yoga (Carroll Gardens)
Mon Feb 16th 2-4p. $35/child. Register here. Teacher: Jocelyn Greene. If you are looking for stimulating, creative and physical fun for your children, please have them join us for our special Let’s Play! Class. Build a castle! Ride a dragon! Dress up in your palace finery! Mount your steed and join us as we find out what really happened between “Once upon a time” and “happily ever after” in our take on favorite classic and contemporary fairy tales.
For more Monday events please click here!
All Weekend
Very Very Verrazano at New York Transit Museum (Downtown Brooklyn)
Sat-Sun Feb 14th-15th & 21st-22nd 130p and Tue-Fri Feb 17th-20th. For ages 5+. Free with museum admission. We’re working together to build a giant-sized model of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in our Education Center. Learn about the towers, anchorages, cables and deck that makes this suspension bridge an engineering marvel.
February School Vacation Week at Dimenna Children’s History Museum (UWS)
Sat Feb 14th–Sun Feb 22nd Free with Museum admission; All ages. The New-York Historical Society is celebrating President’s Day and Lunar New Year all week long! In honor of President’s Day, explore the Museum from top to bottom on a special Presidential Scavenger Hunt and create a silly, one-of-a-kind portrait of our founding fathers and mothers. To celebrate the Lunar New Year, stop by to hear a New Year’s story, see special dance performances, and learn all about the intricate art of Chinese paper cutting. Presidential Scavenger Hunt: Can you find the model of George Washington’s New York City home? Have you ever seen a photograph of the gloves Abraham Lincoln was wearing on the day he was assassinated? On this special scavenger hunt, families search for Presidential items and images located throughout the New-York Historical Society.
The LEGO Movie in 3D at the New York Hall of Science (Flushing)
Sat Feb 14th-Sun Feb 22nd 3-5p. $7 adults; $6 children, students and seniors, plus NYSCI admission. (Members: $3 per person; free for Family Explorer members.) Combo tickets include general admission and film and cost $20 for adults, and $15 for children, students and seniors. 101 minutes. Rated PG. An ordinary guy named Emmet is mistakenly identified as the Master Builder, the one who can save the universe. With the aid of an old mystic Vitruvius, a tough young lady named Lucy, and Batman, Emmet will fight to defeat the evil tyrant Lord Business who is bent on destroying the universe by gluing it together.
The Sleeping Beauty by Puppetworks (Park Slope)
Sat & Sun until March 29th 1230p & 230p. For 4y+. Admission for a Child is $9, an Adult $10. No credit cards accepted. Reservations are suggested: 718-965-3391 (current day or advance reservations) or e-mail us: puppetworks@twcmetrobiz.com (NO same day e-mail reservations). The Sleeping Beauty – Perrault’s fairy tale adapted for Marionettes by Nicolas Coppola. Also playing President’s week February 16th-20th 1230p & 230p.
Family Storytime at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Crown Heights)
Sat & Sun Feb 14th-15th and 21st-22nd 12n-2p. In the Steinhardt Conservatory Lower Level. Adults $10 and children under 12 free. Join us for family storytime in the Steinhardt Conservatory. Kids under nine and their families will enjoy hearing stories about the magic of winter. Storytimes are drop-in style. Please park strollers outside Steinhardt Conservatory.
3, 2, 1… Happy Chinese New Year! at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum (Crown Heights)
Sat & Sun Feb 14th-15th 230p for ages 5 and under. Free with museum admission.
Celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Sheep with the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Learn about this cultural celebration and create a New Year’s craft to take home.
Ponycon 2015 at St. Francis College (Brooklyn Heights)
Sat Feb 14th-Mon Feb 16th various times. $35 adult admission, $15 kids 12 & under. Children under 6 are free. 3 day tickets available also. See website for details. Celebrate over 3 decades of My Little Pony magic and friendship in the Greatest City in the world! Now in its third year, Ponycon 2015 is a global gathering of fans and friends to celebrate all things Pony. Taking place at SFC (St. Francis College) in downtown Brooklyn, Ponycon 2015 will offer interactive experiences and events for fans and friends of all ages, including activities, art, exhibits, exclusives, workshops, lectures, panels, sneak peeks, beauty, food, fun, and many more surprises! Join the colorful world of MLP fandom, and meet wonderful new friends at Ponycon 2015. As Celestia said to Twilight, “make some friends!” See website for full schedule of events.
CAMBUYÓN at The New Victory Theater (Times Square)
Fridays Feb 13th 7p, Sat Feb 14th 12n & 5p, Sun-Mon Feb 15th-16th 12n. See website for additional dates during mid-winter break. For ages 6+. Member tickets $10-$25 and full price tickets start at $15. Performance: 60 minutes with no intermission. When it comes to making instruments out of everyday objects, anything goes for the charismatic cast of CAMBUYÓN. Wooden crates, recycled glass bottles and even a small matchbox find new life in the hands and feet of this energetic ensemble. Through body percussion, tap dance, hip hop and drumming, these performers trade robust beats and cultural cadences to form unique rhythms with African, Irish, Spanish and American influences. Part dance, part music and every part exuberant, CAMBUYÓN makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Fancy Nancy The Musical at Vital Theatre Company (UWS)
Saturdays & Sundays 130p until May 5th. Tickets $30-$40. For ages 2-7y. More shows during midwinter break in February. See website for details. Fancy Nancy returns in Vital Theatre’s hit adaptation of “The Mermaid Ballet.” Nancy and her friends are going to be performing in their very first show, “Deep Sea Dances.” When another girl wins the coveted role of the mermaid, Nancy is stuck playing a dreary, dull tree. Can Nancy bring fancy flair to her role, even though it isn’t the one she wanted?
Jack and the Beanstalk at Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre (Central Park)
Tue–Fri 1030a & 12p, Wed 1030a, 12p & 230p and Sat & Sun 1p until June 26th. Tickets are $7/children and $10/adults. Based on the classic English fairytale, this fresh retelling of the Swedish Cottage original production takes Jack on an enchanting adventure up a magical beanstalk. In this starry new world, Jack encounters the notorious Giant, Milford, whose thieving ways have brought misfortune upon Jack and his mother. Determined to make life better for his family, Jack, with help from friends old and new, risks his life to take back what the Giant stole.
Holiday Express at the New-York Historical Society (UWS)
Now until February 22nd. Friday 10a-8p, Tue-Thu & Sat 10a-6p & Sun 11a-5p. Free with paid admission. Holiday Express: Toys and Trains from the Jerni Collection. The New-York Historical Society will be transformed this holiday season with the installation of a spectacular exhibit of treasures from the renowned Jerni Collection, now owned by the New-York Historical Society, of model trains, scenic elements and toys. The dynamic display will appeal to all age groups, showcasing the beauty and allure of toys from a bygone era. The exhibition begins at the West 77th Street entrance, where movement and sound from four large-scale multimedia screens will make it seem as though trains are roaring through the space. A 360-degree mountainous landscape will be on view in the Judith and Howard Berkowitz Sculpture Court, featuring artifacts grouped into ten scenes.
13th Annual Holiday Train Show at Grand Central Terminal (Midtown East)
Now until February 22nd. M–F: 8a–8p, Saturday and Sunday: 10a–6p. (extended hours November 22n-December 24th – see website for details. Location: Shuttle Passage adjacent to the Station Master’s Office. Free. Lionel trains once again will capture hearts and imaginations at the Transit Museum where Metro-North, New York Central and subway trains depart from a miniature GCT. The Museum’s store and booth at the Holiday Gift Fair offer great gifts for your holiday shopping!
For a full calendar of events please click here!