Events: Top Kid-Friendly Activities For The Week

The 26th Annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest will take place this Saturday! Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Community Services.

Brave the heat this week, and don’t miss any of the family-friendly events we have in store. Some of our annual favorites include a dance fest for all, a sand sculpting competition in Brooklyn, a kite festival in Riverside Park South, a two-day children’s fest in Harlem, and a car show on Governors Island. Happy Monday!

Through Saturday, August 20

35th Annual Battery Dance Festival
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park
6:30pm-8:30pm
Get those happy feet movin’ with the 35th annual Battery Dance Festival. New York’s longest-running free public dance festival features a range of dancers from emerging to professional, as well as an even wider scope of genres. Dancers and choreographers from as far afield as Finland, Turkey, and India will spin and sashay through Battery Park City as they give a series of free outdoor performances for all ages. A ticketed reception will be held at Pace University on Saturday following the closing performance. This event is free.

Saturday, August 20

26th Annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest
Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk (from West 10th to West 12th Streets)
12pm-4pm
Take your family’s creativity down to the shore this Saturday for the 26th Annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest. There are various categories of competition in which the whole family can compete as a team or against each other to see who has the best sandcastle-building skills. Don’t worry if each of your kids has a different vision—past creations have ranged from traditional castles to extravagant skylines and designs. Make sure to pre-register in order to ensure your spot in the competition. This event is free.

FlyNYC Festival
Pier 1 in Riverside Park South
12pm-5pm
Since 2009, the soaring FlyNYC Kite Flying Festival has brought families from all over the city to Riverside Park! With kite-making kits for the kids, kites available for purchase, and plenty of sky for everyone, this festival is a great way to enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Other attractions include a variety of food vendors, live music, and more. This event is free.

Saturday, August 20-Sunday, August 21

Harlem Week’s NYC Children’s Festival
West 135th Street (between Malcolm X and A.C. Powell Jr. Boulevards)
Saturday: 12pm-5pm; Sunday: 12pm-6pm
Head uptown this weekend for Harlem Week’s NYC Children’s Festival! The specific children’s portion of Harlem Week includes a “Back-to-School” kids’ fashion show, as well as dance and spoken word performances, a double-dutch competition, games, sports clinics, face painting, and plenty more activities for the entire family. This event is free.

Sunday, August 21

NYC Volkswagen Traffic Jam
Governors Island
10am
If your little ones are obsessed with cars, take them to see this classic VW show! The NYC Volkswagen Traffic Jam is a spectator-judged, vintage Volkswagen car show. Enjoy a picnic, views of the New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty, as well as Beetles, buses, dune buggies, and more. This event is free. Registration is not required for spectators.

HudsonWay Immersion School

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" data-sheets-value="{" data-sheets-userformat="{">A pioneer in language immersion since 2005. After school language classes provide a fun and effective way for preschool and elementary children to learn Mandarin or Spanish language skills through project based learning and fun, engaging themes.</span></p>

The Language Workshop For Children

<p dir="ltr">After offering both group and private lessons for many years and analyzing the results over&nbsp;time, The&nbsp;Language Workshop for&nbsp;Children, founded&nbsp;in1973, has decided&nbsp;to emphasize private remote lessons at shorter intervals.&nbsp;Our skilled educators&nbsp;will&nbsp;focus their attention exclusively on the&nbsp;unique needs, learning style, and interests of your child.&nbsp;This allows a&nbsp;bond&nbsp;to develop&nbsp;between teacher and student, which&nbsp;has been&nbsp;shown to&nbsp;drastically improve retention.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>OUR METHOD&nbsp;</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Developed by the pioneers of language education for children, our programs bring decades of&nbsp;experience to your living room with individualized, active language classes. Each lesson is based on proven methods and materials perfected to capture your&nbsp;child&rsquo;s attention during the ages when he/she absorbs information the fastest. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">While other online language classes rely on videos for passive learning, we deliver interactive, and engaging lessons with native-fluent teachers. In addition, all our teachers are certified in the Thibaut&nbsp;Technique which has been featured&nbsp;in the New York&nbsp;Times, the&nbsp;Wall Street Journal, and many other well-respected&nbsp;publications.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">Our short one-on-one lessons give kids the chance to focus, hear pronunciation clearly, and practice speaking in their target language. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>THE PROCESS</strong>&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">First, students have a short meeting with our Director&nbsp;Francois&nbsp;Thibaut, in&nbsp;English, with&nbsp;their parent(s)&nbsp;present.&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut&nbsp;will determine&nbsp;the best course of study, including&nbsp;class length and&nbsp;frequency, the&nbsp;right&nbsp;teacher, lesson&nbsp;format and materials (or action games for younger students.) Then the learning&nbsp;begins!&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut will continually check in on your child&rsquo;s learning to assure they are getting the most&nbsp;of&nbsp;their&nbsp;classes.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>OTHER OFFERINGS&nbsp;</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">We can also help your child prepare for: the French subject tests for SAT, AP &amp; CLEP, the European DELF/DALF, the Canadian TEF and other standardized testing, college entry exams, studying or traveling abroad,&nbsp;cultural changes when moving abroad,&nbsp;and much more!&nbsp;</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a97d759c-7fff-6e4d-8e93-70e093aa10f1">&nbsp;</span></p>

Cucu's PlayHouse

<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: #ffffff;">Interactive, live-streaming music and movement class in Spanish for babies, toddlers and preschoolers!<br />Join us every day from Monday through Saturday at 1:30 pm EST to sing, dance and play together while learning Spanish from your home.</div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: #ffffff;">This class is part of a Spanish Immersion Program where your child will be introduced to basic concepts like the animals, colors, numbers and letters. All of these through the universal language of Music. Each session is fun, interactive and engaging.<br />A selection of Children Songs in Spanish guides the class from start to finish. Activities are related to the lyrics, in order to familiarize the children with the words and their meanings. Some of the songs encourage the children to dance. Nilda uses puppets, musical instruments, and props to teach children basic vocabulary through action and interaction, rather than through translation.</div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: #ffffff;"><br />The classes are streamed on Zoom's webinar platform. Participants (children, parents, nannies) are able to join the video from their homes and interact with us in real-time, it is a fun and engaging experience.</div>