NYC as Classroom

May 1 2013

Experience NYC in a New Way with a Stray Boots Interactive Walking Tour & Scavenger Hunt

Experience NYC in a New Way with a Stray Boots Interactive Walking Tour & Scavenger Hunt

As an intrepid Mommy Poppins blogger, I am always on the lookout for cool new ways to experience New York City with my eight-year-old son. While we're certainly up for exploring neighborhoods on our own, when I heard about the do-it-yourself mobile tours offered by Stray Boots, I thought they sounded like fun.

A Stray Boots outing is equal parts walking tour and scavenger hunt. You just download the app on your smartphone, head to the starting location and go. But the entire route isn't given to you up front: At each stop, you need to complete challenges and answer questions in order to progress to the next destination. Along the way, the app shares historical tidbits and facts about the places you visit and the surrounding area.

Stray Boots started in NYC and now offers tours in multiple cities all over the country. For our first one, my son and I and two of his friends decided on the Chinatown and Little Italy tour. While Stray Boots tours aren't specifically aimed at families, we had a great time. Best of all, even though we'd all been to Chinatown and Little Italy before, during the tour we got to see the neighborhoods in an entirely new way.

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Jan 13 2013

8 Spots for Young NYC Inventors: Places Where Kids Can Create Robots, Buildings and More

Things to do with kids: 8 Spots for Young NYC Inventors: Places Where Kids Can Create Robots, Buildings and More

Children are natural inventors. They're always creating, building and tinkering, and coming up with inventive ways to solve life's problems. Take my oldest son, who after watching me scramble for his little sister's discarded sippy cup for the umpteenth time proposed that we add pop-out wings to her stroller to catch whatever she chucked.

While he never did figure out how to develop that product, he's certainly kept busy over the past few years inventing all sorts of other things at a variety of creative places. Here are eight NYC spots where your budding Benjamin Franklins can be inspired to make robots, model buildings, video games and lots of other cool stuff.

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Dec 12 2012

NYC Grandparents: Meaningful Activities for Grandparents and Grandkids

Things to do with kids: NYC Grandparents: Meaningful Activities for Grandparents and Grandkids

A visit with the grandparents can be a special treat for everyone. Parents get a break and kids get to spend time with family members who aren't their mom or dad. That may mean slightly different ground rules, like snagging treats they aren't allowed at home, but it's also an opportunity to hear stories about what mom and pop were like as children. Grandparents can also share first-hand impressions about what the world was like years ago and, specifically, tales about their own family history.

Living in NYC, grandparents have the opportunity to go beyond storytelling. They can actually explore history with their grandchildren by visiting historic sites, museums and other enriching destinations that highlight a variety of cultural and immigrant experiences. My kids are Russian Jews on one side and African-American on the other, so NYC has us well covered.

Whether your kids' grandparents drop by all the time or are only able to visit once in a while, the next time they ask where to take the kids, skip the usual children's museums and play spaces, and suggest one of these meaningful outings, which help the generations find common ground while having fun.

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Sep 10 2012

Visiting the 9/11 Memorial with Kids: Should You Do It and What You Need to Know

Things to do with kids: Visiting the 9/11 Memorial with Kids: Should You Do It and What You Need to Know

Whether you believe it's important to discuss the events of September 11, 2001 with your children or wish you could shield them all together, kids learn about 9/11 at school, from the media and their peers. So the question is, what can we as parents do to help our children process and learn from the events of 9/11?

For children born around or after 2001, 9/11 probably seems like something abstract—a tragedy that happened in history. Visiting the 9/11 Memorial can, perhaps, help make it feel more real. So, what's it like to visit the 9/11 Memorial with children? What's the security like, and how do you get tickets? I took my nine-year-old this weekend and I'll share our experiences.

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Apr 9 2012

NYC Titanic Exhibits and 100th Anniversary Events Appropriate for Kids

Things to do with kids: NYC Titanic Exhibits and 100th Anniversary Events Appropriate for Kids

Although most adults know the story of the Titanic (especially those of us who lived through Titanic-mania fueled by the 1997 movie), kids aren't familiar with the ship or its history. Many kids find the tragic story fascinating. My seven-year old son became obsessed with the ill-fated steamship last summer after reading a fictionalized account of the tragedy in the Magic Tree House book Tonight on the Titanic. He had so many questions about how this incredible ship could crash and sink on its very first journey that he went to the library to research the true story. He even watched iceberg simulations on the Internet trying to figure it out!

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic and while there are lots of events commemorating the catastrophe in New York City (the ship was on its way to the Big Apple, after all), we've rounded up age-appropriate ways for kids to learn about the disaster.

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