Kid Baltimore | Family Activities with Children in Baltimore, Maryland

Cylburn Arboretum

207 acres, right in the middle of Baltimore, and I missed it all this time. Cylburn Arboretum was originally the private estate of Jesse Tyson, president of Baltimore Chrome Works. 

The mansion, designed by George Aloysius Frederick, was completed in 1888 and is open to the public. It is surrounded by gardens and trails that are all maintained by a dedicated staff of volunteers.

If you arrive after 10:00 a.m., stop by the shiny, new visitor center and pick up a map. We were on the early side, so we wandered through the gardens, not really knowing where we were going, but happy anyway.

We took a trail through the woods, past lots of lovely ferns.

Since I wasn't sure where we were going, I was rather happy to find this sign. Circle trail. In my head, that means there is virtually no chance of getting lost. I have faith in the circle trail.

We found a few trees with names from long ago carved in them. I'm hoping they haven't damaged the trees too much.

The circle path sent us back to where we started (hurrah for the circle path!) and we walked through the formal gardens.

Some renovations are going on at the mansion, but it is an impressive home. We spent some time inside reading about the history, and most importantly, cooling off.

While the gardens are worth a visit just on their own, I think the real benefit of visiting Cylburn may be all of the events they have here — yoga in the formal garden, concerts, summer camps. Many events are free, although donations and volunteers are welcome. With all of the activities, we will have plenty of excuses to come back here in the future.

Cylburn Arboretum
4915 Greenspring Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21209 

(410) 367-2217

[Map it]

Exploring Caverns at the Crystal Grottoes

The area surrounding our campsite offers lots to do for families. My very favorite place we stopped was the Crystal Grottoes, a cavern that has been owned by the same family for 3 generations and offers daily tours. We pulled up to a picturesque old storefront. Cows were grazing across a stream. While we waited for our tour to begin, the kids were completely entertained by the small trickle of water that flowed from the building into the nearby stream.

When it was time for the tour, we filed down a narrow staircase into what would normally be a basement. Instead, we found ourselves standing in a cave. Our tour guide was amazing. He switched effortlessly between scientific discussions about geology, to telling us which rock formations looked like a king, or an alligator, or an elephant...

He explained how the caverns were discovered in 1920, and how they have been digging it out ever since, bucket at a time, sometimes with shovels, but just as often by hand. Yesterday alone they removed 25 buckets full of dirt and clay, to expose still more formations.

We learned about the critters that live down here too, but they were hiding. There are a few bats, frogs, and lizards. But the thing that astounded me the most is a honeysuckle root that our guide points out. It has burrowed 70 feet underground.

My cave explorers look happy, don't they? We wandered from room to room, down windy hallways that were fortunately quite well lit. On this particular day (after an amazingly hard rain) it was a little wet down there. One room is under water, but the rest we can get too quite easily. We traveled to a final depth of about 80 feet underground. It was cool, and quiet, and peaceful. After a while, I had no idea where we were. Our tour guide pointed us to different paths, where he tells us it's about a 6 hour trek back. No thanks. We'll stick with the tour.

 

240-217-7623

Crystal Grottoes Caverns
19821 Shepherdstown Pike
Boonsboro, MD 21713

[Map It]

Good Things From My Inbox

 

My inbox has been filling up lately with lots of good ideas of things to do/buy/make and I wanted to share just a few with you.

123 Baltimore: A Cool Counting Book by Puck is a counting board book for the toddler set. It takes little ones on a cool trip through Charm City. And while your little ones may not yet fully understand the significance of pink flamingos or blue crabs, or all things Baltimore, Hon, it's never too soon to start.

I really appreciate the simple san-serif type and clean design.

 

 

 

---

Here's a great offer from the American Visionary Art Museum for free admission to the museum if you donate clean jars. This offer is good through September 2011. You can email to arrange for your free passes. If you haven't taken your kids to AVAM, it is positively one of my favorite art places to go, and worth every penny. But free is even better. Here is a letter from their Education Assistant, Beka:

I am writing to ask if you could possibly assist us in collecting jars for our Educational programs. In exchange for your readers donating 10 jars, we can give them 2 passes to the museum. We are looking for jars to use in a workshop we currently offer for students coming to the museum on field trips called "Wire Whimsies" ( I have attached a photo !) Any jars with a lid work for this project, including jam jars, baby food jars, salsa jars etc.

---

Baltimore International College has some wonderful sounding Food Enthusiast Classes. These are non-credit (in other words, no pressure) continuing education cooking and baking classes that are taught by experienced chefs at the Culinary Arts Center in Little Italy.

You can get gift certificates too, which might make a pretty nice Christmas present, hint, hint.

In the meantime, they sent this delicious looking gingerbread house recipe. I'm slightly terrified that it calls for 13 cups of flour. Am I building a city? I'm tempted to cut it in half, but I might just go for it because I really don't think there is such a thing as too much gingerbread.

Gingerbread House or Cookies

Ingredients:
6 cups Sugar
4 cups Butter (soft)
3/4 cup Molasses
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Milk
13 cups Flour
3 tbsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Cinnamon
2 tbsp Ginger
2 tsp Allspice
2 tsp Cloves


Procedure:
1. Beat the sugar, butter, and molasses together.
2. Add the eggs and beat until incorporated.
3. Add the milk and continue beating.
4. Mix the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves). Add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

---

And finally, Faces iMake, an app developed in conjunction with Hancoch Piven. I've been familiar with Hanoch's illustration work for many years, and I think this app is a fantastic adaptation of his playful style.

The app comes with a collection of collage objects that include musical instruments, food, hardware, letters and tools. You can combine them to make just about any face you can imagine. There is a lite version available for free, but for the full collection of 2000+ objects, I would recommend the premium version.

Sculpture Exhibition at Evergreen

 

We were feeling rather genteel, as we strolled along the grounds of Evergreen, a Gilded Age mansion on Charles Street. And hey, that's quite an accomplishment with our entourage of kids in tow. The Evergreen's new exhibit Simultaneous Presence explores the work of 10 sculptors. Each was asked to explore the "simultaneous presence of past and present." It's a theme that works very well here. The Evergreen mansion is quite an impressive backdrop, and you can't ignore the mix of past and present here, so why not embrace it.

Throughout the Italian style gardens are plenty of ivy covered walls, water fountains, and open spaces to explore. The exhibit is free, and on view throughout the museum grounds. It runs through September 26, 2010, Tuesday - Sunday, 9am - 5pm. Admission to the museum is additional.

410-516-0341

Evergreen
4545 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21210

[Map It]

Mums and Sundials

A recent trip to the Conservatory revealed two new surprises. First, the chrysanthemums, still in full bloom and crazy beautiful. I'm only showing one here, because I don't want to ruin the fun.

And second, this bizarre sundial. It shows multiple timezones, one on each plane. I think it's brilliant, despite the tree stump base. Surely the base was an afterthought.

Baltimore's time was dead on.

 

 

410-396-0180

Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens
3100 Swan Drive in Druid Hill Park
Baltimore, MD 21217

[Directions from their website]

Leonardo Da Vinci — The Genius

I stopped by the Maryland Science Center for a sneak peek at their new show Da Vinci — The Genius, which opens Saturday October 3, 2009 and runs through January 31, 2010. While this is a very grown-up show, they also have kid-friendly activities. My favorite parts are the working models that are marked with a "please touch gently" symbol. The intricately built models show Leonardo's sketches for mechanical studies in real life, with cranks that turn and pulleys that lift. There is even an example of one of his military inventions, an emergency bridge, where kids will be able to experiment with building their own small scale version with wooden logs.

I love the replicas of his journals, all written backwards to reduce smearing (he was left handed). Me? I just put up with the smearing. Leonardo? Writes backwards. Genius.

His paintings are also explored; from the Mona Lisa, to the Last Supper, to a new work just discovered in 2008. All replicas, of course, since the originals are fragile and priceless, but seeing his artwork side by side with his other work really gives you a sense of the broad scope of Leonardo's accomplishments: artist, city planner, inventor, military strategist, scientist.

Now about the title, Da Vinci — The Genius. I have no doubt that he was a genius. But the da Vinci part? Even though I nodded off more than a few times in my art history class, I still retained enough to know that his name was not da Vinci anymore than my name is da Baltimore. His name was Leonardo, and he was from the town of Vinci. I asked the reason for the name. "That's what most people would recognize." But I think we deserve a little more credit than that, even if we are not geniuses.

That said, this is the most comprehensive exhibit ever produced of possibly the most brilliant person that ever lived. And you've gotta love that.

410-685-5225

The Maryland Science Center
601 Light Street
Baltimore, MD 21230