With kids spending free time at home instead of with friends, Patience and Fortitude will get parents only so far!

     The New York Public Library offers ways to keep your family occupied and engaged no matter their age.

     Pre-school: Ideas for playing at home, from music shakers to no-mess finger painting.

     Pre-teens: A range of chapter books that meet the requirement for 30-minute independing reading.

     High school: Books and videos chosen for teens who want more than just an assignment to fulfill.

     The full list of resources is here.

     Unleash your art abilities with special sketchbook challenges in this summer workshop with nature walks with a purpose in Inwood Hill Park.

     All camp sessions include a materials kit that comes with a camp T-shirt.

     Each session runs two weeks. Register here.

     July 19 to 30: Painting

     August 2 to 13: Industrial design

     August 16 to 27: Back to school

     $1.300. Hosted by the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum in our partnership with the Scribble Art Workshop.

     Enrich your children’s summer with at-home art classes from the Hispanic Society.

     Taught by local artist Reynaldo Pantaleón, this drawing workshop helps students develop beginner-level skills through the museum’s collection of prints and drawings.

     For ages 9 through 12. Register here.

          Free. Monday mornings in July at 10 online.

     Scheming a way to save their father’s ranch, the Alvarez brothers (Diego Luna and Will Ferrell) find themselves in a war with Mexico’s most feared drug lord.  

     A bat-crazy satire of the Mexican telenovela, replete with flimsy scenery, soapy dialogue, and over-the-top characters, Casa de mi Padre is also daring and considered a stylistically bold experiment in cinema.

     The 2012 film is in Spanish with English subtitles. The evening begins with a musical performance.

      Get tickets. Food and drink available for purchase. Seating will be provided and capacity is  limited to 100 people.
     Free, but tickets required. Monday night at 8 at The Hudson in the Dyckman Marina, in Inwood Hill Park at 348 Dyckman Street.

     Enrich your children’s summer with at-home art classes from the Hispanic Society.

     Taught by the artist Felipe Galindo, this workshop inspires and teaches students how to create their own comics, based on imagery from the Latin American, Hispanic, and experiences in the city.

     For ages 8 and up. Register here.

          Free. Tuesday mornings in July at 10 online.

     Get back in the game this summer!

     The Blue Chips basketball league returns with co-ed games and competitions, sponsored by the NYPD. Open to teens from 13 to 16 years old.

     Sign up at the 34th Precinct, on Broadway at 183rd Street (or at your neighborhood’s precinct house). More info on Facebook.

     Through August 17.

      City College continues its after-school program for high school students looking to improve ther math and science skills.

     Part of the STEM Institute, it was launched specifically to meet the needs of students who either live or attend school in Upper Manhattan.

     The program offers sessions Tuesdays through Fridays and on Saturdays too.

     Find out more here.

     Enrich your children’s summer with at-home art classes from the Hispanic Society.

     This workshop focuses on the Hispanic Society’s collection of maps from the Age of Exploration, which are used to teach students about cartography and the history of Latin America and Spain.

     For ages 12 through 14. Register here.

     Free. Wednesday mornings in July at 10 online.

     Children know that parks are full of trees, bounded by rivers, and home to all sorts of animals.

     Here’s a workshop that encourages them to search for the letters that spell their names. The alphabet is out there, it just takes some creative seeing to find it in nature and architecture.

     Once they’ve collected letters, Urban Park Rangers will help them put them together in Stop Motion Studio to spell their names.

     Free. Wednesday afternoons at 3:30 at Muscota Marsh in Inwood Hill Park. Through August 18.

     Join Fort Washington Library’s staff for a virtual read aloud and book chat of two or three of the librarians’ favorite picture books. 

     The program is geared toward children from infants to 5 years old. Both the parent or caregiver and child must be present during the program. 

     Register here.

     Free. Wednesday mornings at 11:30 online.

     The fabric of Quisqueya Heights is woven from a rich history of arts and culture from the Latinx diaspora. 

     Celebrate the magic of the neighborhood through a group of movie posters announcing In the Heights and a body of archival photographs from the early years of the Uptown Arts Stroll/Paseo de las artes.

     Free. Mondays through Fridays from 10 to 4 at Boricua College, in the second floor Library Reading Room, on Audubon Terrace on Broadway at 156th Street. Through August 13.

     Enrich your children’s summer with at-home art classes from the Hispanic Society.

     Taught by the artist Josefina Hernandez, this workshop teaches students to make a variety of paper crafts that are inspired by the Hispanic Society’s collection of Islamic artwork.

     For ages 6 through 8. Register here.

     Free. Thursday mornings in July at 10 online.

     City College’s STEM Institute Summer Programs offers incoming 9th graders and high school students an intensive and enriching six-week curriculum in college-level study.

     All courses offer elective credits, with CCNY College NOW Credit offerings for qualified 10th and 11th graders in calculus & game design.  

     The program runs in partnership with District 6 Middle Schools, for all students coming from  underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, and help them build the educational pipeline for a smooth transition to high school, college, and careers.

     The programs run from Thursday through August 12, Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Priority seating will be given to students who either live or attend school in the Northern Manhattan Region/Community District 6 schools.

     In a fun twist on Tot Shabbat, gather outdoors to sing, tell stories, light “candles” and enjoy challah together.

     And don’t forget the live ukulele music, from the YM & YWHA’s own Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, and joined by Todah, our amazing Sloth (you have to meet Todah!).

     Come meet each other, too, the families of the Y across the neighborhood. 

     Register here.

     Free. Friday morning at 9:30 on the Café Lawn in Fort Tryon Park. Also on August 27.

     Join fans of classic sci-fi and B-movies for a screening of Forbidden Planet (1956), directed by Fred M. Wilcox and starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielson.

     In this Movies Under the Star show, a starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.

     Help the Park Department prepare for the crowd when you let them know you're coming by registering on Eventbrite at acfforbiddenplanet.eventbrite.com.

      Free. Friday night at 8:30 on the Indian Road Law in Inwood Hill Park.

    Do some digging, then get in some riding with your BMX buds.

      Meet up for a day of work and play in the woods and learn what it takes to build, maintain, and ride the most progressive urban bike park in America, with the help of the New York City Mountain Bike Association.

     There will be light trail maintenance tasks for all ages in the morning. Every volunteer receives a free 20-minute clinic and, in the afternoon, a guided ride throughout the trails from 12:30 to 3. Even better, bikes and helmets are provided, so you don’t need your own.  

     Uptown is the home of the city's first mountain biking course, 3 miles of trails of varying difficulty and a free-ride trail that includes drops, steeps, and berms. The park also features a dirt jump park and pump track, making it a good place to develop different skills at all levels.

     Updates on trail work posted are on the New York chapter’s web site.

     Free. Saturday morning from 10 to 3 in Fort George at the BMX trailhead in Highbridge Park, on Fort George Avenue, just northwest of the Buczek Ballfield. Monthly on the second Saturday.

     Join the Musical Storytelling Project for a music-filled morning, presented by Orchestrating Dreams.

     Take a blanket, cold water and snacks, and your friends, too.

     Free. Saturday morning, July 31, at 10 and 11 at the Lily Brown Playground in Fort Washington Park. (Rain date August 1.)

     Learn the basics of dance or improve your skills with classes in ballet/ tap and modern.

     The Dance Project of Washington Heights opens its winter schedule for students every day of the week. The classes are taught online during the pandemic from the group’s Lower WaHi studio.

     Prices and times vary depending on the class. For more information click here.

     Join Cassie Xu, Director of the Office of Education and Outreach at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, as she builds the simple paper diorama of the Thwaites Glacier.

     Get your colored pencils, scissors, and tape or glue ready and follow along. Share your final creation with on social media (#LDEOtoGO) or email it to events@ldeo.columbia.edu.

     Download the PDFs of the diorama in color or in black and white to print at home. 

     So you’re stuck doing chores at home when you’d rather be playing in the park.

     How about a little experiment?

     Turn an egg into a rubber ball … make nectar for hummingbirds … maybe figure out how focus binoculars.

     They’re all here, courtesy of the Greenbelt Conservancy, our friends in Staten Island who take care of the parks and open spaces on Richmond.

     Where are you going?

     Use a compass rose to help you get there. A video from the Hispanic Society will show you how to make one with a potato, some paint and a few more household objects.

     You’ll also learn a bit about maps through the centuries and how explorers used them to travel to places they’d never seen.

     Here’s a way to make your next outing with the kids a little different.

     Print out a family scavenger hunt booklet and take a walk through Fort Tryon Park’s historic estate remnants.

     Find, draw, and map natural marvels and constructed treasures while you explore the path network that leads from Billings Lawn to the Palisades Overlook.

     The booklet is provided by the Fort Tryon Park Trust.

     Need something new for the kids to do?

     The Hispanic Society of America offers several coloring pages, each based on one of the most famous paintings in the museum’s collection. Recognize the Duchess of Alba? Download the pdf below.

      And here’s a recap of the Society’s summer camp for kids.

      For adults, the society has posted several lectures here.

¿Necesita algo nuevo para que hagan los niños?
      La Hispanic Society of America ofrece varias páginas para colorear, cada una basada en una de las pinturas más famosas de la colección del museo. ¿Reconoces a la duquesa de Alba? Descargue el pdf a continuación.
       Para los adultos, la sociedad ha publicado varias conferencias aquí.

     Have someone at home who needs a bigger stage?

     The Pied Piper Children’s Theatre offers a 35-minute musical theater introductory class to take kids through a typical vocal warm-up, stretches, dance warm-up, and even some funny tongue twisters and other facial and speech exercises. The troupe’s artistic director, Colleen Hawks-Pierce, leads, with guest appearances by Uptown teens.

     Free. Watch it here.

     In a South Florida retirement community, 91-year-old Saul Dreier starts a klezmer band with fellow concentration camp survivor Ruby Sosnowicz, hoping to use music to celebrate life and memorialize those who perished in the Holocaust. 

     Saul and Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band is 2020 documentary that runs 80 minutes and is in English with Spanish subtitles. The evening begins with a musical performance.

      Get tickets. Food and drink available for purchase. Seating will be provided and capacity is  limited to 100 people.
     Free, but tickets required. Monday night, July 26, at 8 at The Hudson in the Dyckman Marina, in Inwood Hill Park at 348 Dyckman Street.

     Help your kids learn to eat healthy in this bilingual, garden-to-table wellness day camp.

     Campers will focus on urban gardening, foodways, healthy cooking, healthy movement, yoga, and meditation.

     Lunch will be provided and, since the events will take place outdoors, masks will not be required. 

     Each student will receive a Grow Kit to start and sustain a mini herb garden at home, an observation educational activity to continue learning after the program finishes, which they can share with their families. 

     Free. Monday through Friday, August 2 through 6, from 10 to 2 at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum in Inwood on Broadway at 204th Street.

     “If you build it …” 

     Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella is inspired by a voice he can’t ignore to pursue a dream he can hardly believe. Supported by his wife, Ray begins the quest by turning his ordinary cornfield into a place where dreams can come true.  

     Field of Dreams, from 1989, runs 107 minutes and is in English with Spanish subtitles. The evening starts with a musical performance.

     Get Tickets. Food and drink available for purchase. Seating will be provided and capacity is  limited to 100 people.
     Free, but tickets required. Monday night, August 2, at 7:30 at The Hudson in the Dyckman Marina, in Inwood Hill Park at 348 Dyckman Street.

     Take advantage of a car-free night in the park with kids' games, dance lessons, line dancing, and a screening of a classic film, The Wizard of Oz.

     Pack a picnic and head out to discover what New York is like without cars.
     Fort Tryon Park's roads close to vehicular traffic at 6 p.m.

     Free. Wednesday night, August 4, with activities starting at 6:30 and the film beginning at 8:15 on the Cloisters Lawn in Fort Tryon Park.

     Show your park some love and join a Monday Morning Pitch-In. It’s a project that also features a special walking tour through Inwood Hill Park’s woodlands, led by the Urban Park Rangers.

     The city’s parks are being used more than ever before as a result of the pandemic, which often means more litter. You can help!  

     Sign up here and remember to wear a face covering when volunteering.

     Free. Monday morning, August 16, from 8 to 11 at 218th Street and Indian Hill Road in Inwood Hill Park.

     Jennifer Lopez helps tall the true story of Selena, a Texas-born Tejano singer who rose from cult status to having chart-topping albums on the Latin music charts.  

     The 1992 musical drama Selena is in English with Spanish subtitles. It runs 132 minutes and is appropriate for young adult. A pre-show musical performance begins at 7:30 p.m. 

     Get Tickets. Food and drink available for purchase. Seating will be provided and capacity is  limited to 100 people.
     Free, but tickets required. Monday night, August 16, at 7:30 at The Hudson in the Dyckman Marina, in Inwood Hill Park at 348 Dyckman Street.

     In a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.

     Raya and the Last Dragon is a Disney film and runs 113 minutes in English with Spanish subtitles. The evening begins with a musical performance.

       Get Tickets. Food and drink available for purchase. Seating will be provided and capacity is  limited to 100 people.
     Free, but tickets required. Monday night, August 30, at 7:30 at The Hudson in the Dyckman Marina, in Inwood Hill Park at 348 Dyckman Street.

     The annual Drums Along the Hudson began in 2002 as a traditional Pow Wow to celebrate Native American heritage and culture, and also to commemorate the Lenape people who first inhabited Inwood Hill Park, or Shorakapok (“edge of the water”).

     The event features dancers and drummers from around the world, combining Native American heritage, culture and art with the diversity of New York City. Activities include a Tree of Peace planting, international cuisine, Native American storytelling, a Pow Wow and crafts.
     The event has attracted a growing audience, numbering from 400 in the first year to over 8,000 in recent years.
     Free. A Sunday in early June in Inwood Hill Park at Indian Road and 218th Street.

    The festival is canceled again this year.

    The Medieval Festival is the most famous event in the Heights, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the neighborhood.

     Lords, ladies, knights and commoners bring to life the customs and spirit of the middle ages, transforming a slice of Upper Manhattan into a medieval market town decorated with bright banners and processional flags. Visitors are greeted by period music, dance, magic, and minstrels, as well as jugglers and jesters. The day concludes with a joust among four knights on horseback.

     The city is not permitting events as large as the festival, which brings tens of thousands of people.

     Free. Sunday, October 2, 2022, in Fort Tryon Park.