Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in san francisco, CA

Hyde Street Pier

by Crystal Ritchie

July 31, 2009

Determined to get out of the house and enjoy a bit of sunshine before the fog rolled back in, I packed a picnic lunch and carted my 3 year old son to the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park at Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday. Admission to the park was $5 for me and free for Jack since he is under the age of 16. The receipt allows for free readmission to the park for up to six days after the initial visit, which can come in handy in the event of an unscheduled meltdown or an unwavering boat obsession.

At the Hyde Street Pier we were presented with five vessels to board which fully delighted my little pirate. Jack was nervous aboard the slightly unsteady C.A. Thayer, one of the smaller schooners in the water, so we had a bit of a whirlwind tour. He was much more comfortable on the heartier Balclutha, and his face lit up when he saw a fellow pirate-loving boy exploring and rocking a giant chain located in the sleeping quarters of the 256-feet-long deck. Narrow stairways, which may be difficult to navigate for anyone unsteady on their feet, lead down to the massive cargo hold where we watched a short video on the history of the ship.

A National Park Ranger informed us of an interpretive program perfect for children with decent attention spans. The National Parks feature junior ranger programs, as well, which give older children a way to obtain their very own ranger badge by asking the rangers questions about the park. The rangers love to share their knowledge and love of the parks!

After enjoying our lunch on a park bench, we headed back to our car parked across the street in the garage at Ghirardelli Square (where I may or may not have bought $20 worth of incredibly delicious Kara's Cupcakes to get validated parking).

Mother's Day 2009

by Michael Rohde

May 06, 2009

I have to give Sunday Streets continual props. The first one of the year was a blast. We went down to AT&T Park, ran the bases, played ball in the Fan Lot, and then walked over to the playground and a grassy field, which is about a block away. Sponsors had hula hoops and catch-and-throw toys spread out. It was hilarious to see my little two-year old trying to hula. She had no trouble getting inside the hoop and picking it up, but it was far too big for her to start swinging her hips. Gotta hand it to her for trying though!

I bring Sunday Streets up because on May 10 they will be back at it again along the Waterfront route in the Southeast Sector of the city. The route highlights the San Francisco Bay Trail, which is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. The route starts at AT&T Park, stretches to the Bayview Opera House, and then finishes at India Basin (details).

If you’re still looking for something to do today, don’t forget that the Bay Area Discovery Museum offers free admission on the first Wednesday of every month (yep, that’s today).

Koret Museum Days
BADM is participating in Koret Museum Days, which means on Sunday May 10, admission is free of charge. Seventeen other museums and varied locations are participating, including the Exploratorium, the SF Museum of Modern Art, and the SF Zoo (full list of locations).

That’s all good for Mom Day, but what about Saturday? Don't worry, there’s stuff to do then as well:

Richmond District Family Fun Days
The Richmond Village Beacon is presenting a carnival event with resource booths, food, and games for every member of the family! This event is free and open to the public (details).

Baby Loves Disco (in my wife's words, "geez, this is expensive!")
If your baby/toddler/kid loves to dance the afternoon away, and you don't mind dropping $18/per person at the door (that's $72 for a family of four), then Baby Loves Disco is where you need to be heading on Saturday.

Hawaii, Mexico, Japan, and More all in SF

by Michael Rohde

April 29, 2009

There’s no shortage of things to do this weekend. Events range from the Bay Area Discovery Museum's fundraiser to a Hawaiian dance program at Yerba Buena Gardens and much, much more.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
On Saturday from 1PM to 2:30PM, Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu, Patrick Makuakane's dynamic Hawaiian dance company, presents a program of visually captivating hula. In its only full-length San Francisco performance this year, the company will feature a rich blend of traditional and contemporary forms of hula, showcasing a delightful combination of signature pieces and audience favorites in the hula kahiko, hula 'auana, and hula mua styles. Performances are given in a "talk-story" format, incorporating narration and dance to provide a rich cultural context.

San Francisco Cinco De Mayo Festival
Visit Mission Dolores Park on Saturday from 10AM to 6PM. This is a free, kid-friendly, and alcohol-free event. Bring your picnic blanket and enjoy all-day music, kid's activities, entertainment, food, arts and crafts and more.

Kristi Yamaguchi's Children's Day Festival in Japantown
From 11AM to 4PM on Saturday, visit the Japantown Peace Plaza (Post and Buchanan Street). In recognition of Japan's National holiday to celebrate children, the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Northern California invites you to bring your family and enjoy the fun. This free event will have plenty of kids craft booths, entertainment and great food.

Bay Area Discovery Museum's Fundraiser
BADM encourages you to join them on Saturday at 6PM for Playdate—an evening of grown-up play at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge to benefit the museum. The evening begins with wine tasting and cocktails while you enjoy the beautiful view of San Francisco. Browse and bid on Silent Auction packages, then sit down to a fabulous dinner and a Live Auction—all at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge!

Asian Art Museum
The Asian Art Museum is located at 200 Larkin Street and offers free admission on the first Sunday of every month, which does include family programs. Free admission to "Target First Free Sundays" is granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Due to capacity restrictions, admission is not guaranteed.

San Francisco Birth and Baby Fair
If you're new to parenting or expecting a baby, Maternity Xchange, sponsored by Natural Resources, brings together representatives from pregnancy, birth, parenting and baby related resources for a day of information, education and shopping. Baby experts—from midwives and educators to baby photographers—will be on hand to address your questions and interests. The Birth and Baby Fair also offers free workshops, refreshments, and goody bags. Check out baby and maternity clothing, including items from local designers, most discounted from regular retail price. The event takes place at Fort Mason on Sunday from 10AM to 3PM. Tickets are $5 but you can find free and discounted passes at Natural Resources locations and AAA.

Yerba Buena Gardens Supports the Tap Project and UNICEF

by Michael Rohde

March 23, 2009

If you missed it this weekend, or if you haven’t been to Yerba Buena Gardens (YBG) in awhile, there is still time today and tomorrow to check out some new sculptures. YBG is providing UNICEF (in relation to the Tap project) sculpture space, pro bono, to help support the need for clean water. The sculptures will be showcased around the fountains until March 24th. This is an excellent opportunity to re-visit a popular San Francisco location, or if you’re brand new to the city, this is a spot you need to check out.

Yerba Buena Gardens (the garage is located at 5th and Mission) is a great place to take the kids to let them run and play. Surrounded by the Metreon and the Moscone, YBG has something for everyone:

• Zeum
  Zeum is a community-based art and technology museum serving youth and families in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. With a mission to foster creativity in young people, Zeum provides high quality, interactive experiences using art, media and technology tools to ignite the imagination and inspire lifelong learning.
• Yerba Buena Ice Skating Center
  The skating center offers year-round ice skating seven days a week, which includes public sessions, a skating school, and youth/adult hockey. The Hockey/Skate retail store features a full service Pro Shop and authentic skatewear. You can also host your Birthday Parties and Corporate events there. The center has accommodations for groups between 10-500 people.
• Yerba Buena Bowling Center
  The bowling center has 12 lanes, which are open 7 days a week. You can host Birthday Parties and Corporate Events for 10-100 people here and Bowling Leagues are also available.
• Historic Charles Looff Carousel
  The beautifully hand-carved Charles Loof Carousel was built in 1906 and was formerly the Carousel from Playland-at-the-Beach where it ran from 1912 to 1972. In 1998, it was purchased by the City of San Francisco, fully restored and brought to Yerba Buena Gardens. The carousel is open Daily from 10am-6pm. Admission is $2 per ride and is located at the corner of 4th and Howard next to the Zeum.

99 Things to Do in San Francisco Before Kindergarten: The Full List

by Graham Charles

January 02, 2009

One of my great accomplishments last year was to finish this enormous list of things I think every San Francisco kid should do before the age of 6 or so. The range is vast and yet I'm sure I'm leaving quite a bit off, all the same. Since we originally posted in ten parts, I'm going to reprise the entire list here, complete with check boxes so you can keep track of your progress. (There's  Read more...

99 Things to Do In San Francisco Before Kindergarten, Part 10: Monthly Adventures

by Graham Charles

December 22, 2008

Finally we come to the bottom of our list of San Francisco treats -- those toddler hot spot and unmissable adventures that every local kid should experience before kindergarten. I've saved something a little different for the final installment: stuff we try to find time for every single month.  To me, raising a child isn't about providing rare points of high excitement to punctuate an  Read more...

Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Preschoolers

by Graham Charles

December 19, 2008

Now, four days until Christmas and one until the first candle of Hanukkah, is when the last-minute gift idea requests come rolling in. I'm widely known as a reformed procrastinator, so I get many of these desperate pleas for help. Here are a few of my old standbys for last-minute presents preschool-aged kids: Magazines I'm really fond of getting a subscription to Baby Bug or Wild Animal  Read more...

A San Francisco Holiday -- Kid-Style

by Graham Charles

December 02, 2008

San Francisco goes a little nutso around the holidays. Once those outlining lights appear on the Financial District's skyscrapers, holiday events start to crop up on every corner. If you're really intent on not missing a single one, you can check out the Visitors' Bureau's entire list of festivities , but to trim it down, here are some of my favorites: I love to ice skate, and there are once  Read more...

Museumette: Zeum's 10th Anniversary

by Graham Charles

November 20, 2008

Another in my series of posts about San Francisco's quirkier museums... Kids seem to enter the "craft" age when somewhere upwards of about 18 months they realize that the marks those marks they're making on the sofa actually really stay there. Somewhat later, those marks congeal into representations of everything important: mommy, daddy, cats and dogs, and poop. Finally, after  Read more...

99 Things to Do In San Francisco Before Kindergarten, Part 6: Places to Go With Grandparents

by Graham Charles

November 17, 2008

My almost-three-year old, Fern, has just been blessed (or cursed!) with a little sister. Naturally, she's been getting to spend a lot of time with her extended family: grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts -- not to mention friends -- who have all pitched in to help entertain the new big sister. There are some San Francisco sights that lend themselves especially to visiting relations;  Read more...

The Exploratorium for Toddlers

by Graham Charles

November 14, 2008

Now that the rainy season has befallen us so decisively, our thoughts as parents turn oxymoronically to indoor "outings." The Academy of Sciences is a gem when not crowded, of course, but I've been surprised at how many parents of young children ignore the Exploratorium. Many friends of toddlers I know have suggested that this hands-on science museum is targeted at reading kids of  Read more...

Run! Jump! Fly! at the Bay Area Discovery Museum

by Graham Charles

November 07, 2008

The Discovery Museum opened their new rotating exhibition last month: Run! Jump! Fly! The exhibits range from monkey bars to a side-stepping climbing wall, although my nearly 3-year old daughter Fern was most taken with the snowboarding simulator. The interactive stations are targeted to kids from around age 6 or so (some of them, like the rowing machine, would only really be usable by a  Read more...

Museumette: The Bay Model Visitor's Center

by Graham Charles

November 06, 2008

Continuing my series on the tiny and odd museums of San Francisco, we head north this week to Sausalito's Bay Model Visitor's Center. This quirky site was originally a working model -- it's a 1.5 acre indoor representation of the bay, filled with water to a couple of inches, that the Army Corps of Engineers used to image current and flow. The actual science has been replaced by computers,  Read more...

November Outlook: Stay in the House!

by Graham Charles

October 31, 2008

There's something about the first rainy days of autumn that make you just want to curl up inside, sit your kid in front of a lot of blank paper, and drink warm cider. In the past, I just would not have gone for that, since I'm one of those "outing" parents who thinks that every day should bring an adventure. (My two-year old daughter's first question of the morning nearly every day is  Read more...

99 Things to Do In San Francisco Before Kindergarten, part 2: Museums

by Graham Charles

October 20, 2008

Our Savvy Source editors suggested that every city columnist come up with a list of the 99 things every kid ought to do in our town before they turn 6 or so. Mike Adamick, my predecessor, made a brilliant start with a top 10 list but stopped short of the full 99, sagely observing, "Holy sweet Aunt Edna, people, my kid would be off to college before I got done writing that let alone doing that."  Read more...

Museumette: Model Trains at the Randall Museum

by Graham Charles

October 16, 2008

After a certain age, model trains ceases to be called "playing" and turns into a "hobby," and so it is for the members of the Golden Gate Model Railroad Club. I've never had the patience to actually do any model railroad construction, but I find it fascinating to watch, so Fern and I occasionally check out the club's open hours, Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum. At  Read more...

10 Tips for Surviving a Visit with Your Toddler to the New Academy of Sciences

by Graham Charles

October 06, 2008

The re-opened California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is going to be all the rage for months. If you've got a child of two or older but don't want to wait until the crowds die down, here are a few tips for managing the trip, gleaned from my three visits with my daughter Fern over the past week. (Yes, three visits. And we're going again today. I love this place!) Get a  Read more...

Museumette: The San Francisco Fire Department Museum

by Graham Charles

October 03, 2008

All the excitement over the new Academy of Sciences has led me to an odd discovery: San Francisco is actually rich in tiny museums -- little spots, frequently volunteer-run, where some unusual topic (cartoons! old arcade games!) is covered thoroughly. Today I kick off an occasional series on these tiny, tiny gems the fire department museum. Fern, my 2-year old daughter, is completely  Read more...

The Bestest Post Ever: Taking Your Kid to the Art Museum

by Graham Charles

September 30, 2008

Tuesdays, the Savvy HQ folks ask us local content editors to write on a theme, and this week they want us to re-post our favorite post from Savvy's first half-year. I'm lucky in that the editor until this month was Mike Adamick , one of my favorite writers, so I had a lot to choose from! I decided on his advice for taking your toddler to the art museum -- SF MOMA, in his case, but the ideas are  Read more...

Randall Museum: A Savvy classic pick

by Mike Adamick

July 18, 2008

Everyone in the city probably knows about the little gem called the Randall Museum , but just in case there's a few people who haven't heard, let me fill you in: It. is. magnificent. If you've got a kid in the house, you need to visit Randy. There are puzzles and games for toddlers to older kids, birds, bees and animals for kids of any age, and also some pretty neat classes on everything from  Read more...

Savvy Guest: Bay Area Discovery Museum

by Mike Adamick

July 02, 2008

We've been big fans of the Bay Area Discovery Museum since Emmeline was just learning to drool, because it's an easy trip from the city (just across the Golden Gate at Fort Baker) and because it has seemingly everything a kid could need. From "trout" rivers to wild twig nests to story times to arts and crafts to ... well, you get the idea. If you haven't been yet, it's definitely worth the short  Read more...

Savvy crafts: Free museum days

by Mike Adamick

June 30, 2008

The Museum of Craft and Folk Art has an interesting exhibit about American Symbols running through Aug. 3, and it's worth a stop if your toddler is into flags, army men (the really old kind, not the fake plastic ones) or anything to do with red, white and blue. And the best part is ... Tuesdays are always free. I didn't know that until a few days ago, when we stopped by to see what was going on  Read more...

Littlest Critic: Finding Frida

by Mike Adamick

June 26, 2008

So much for my philosophy of getting to museums early and beating the lines! The Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art was jam-packed just a few minutes after opening on a recent visit, meaning Emmeline and I were squeezed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with others as we tried to catch a few glimpses of the work from the fantastic Mexican folk artist, who has deep roots in San Francisco.  Read more...

Littlest Critic: Contemporary Jewish Museum

by Mike Adamick

June 12, 2008

I was very excited about taking Emmeline to the new Contemporary Jewish Museum because for years now we have watched as the Jesse Street power station (remodeled in 1907 by Willis Polk) was tuned up with a Daniel Libeskind-designed metallic cube, or as my daughter called it -- "The big black box." (It's located along Mission Street near Third -- right across the street from Yerba Buena  Read more...

Free Museum Weekend! Chihuly at DeYoung

by Mike Adamick

June 09, 2008

My poor wife -- she plans a nice Father's Day weekend for us, and then I learn that Target has sponsored an entire free weekend at the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park to commemorate the opening of the brand-new Chihuly exhibit. This is a tough one. If you've seen a Dale Chihuly exhibition before, you know this is a visual, sensory treat any child would go nuts over -- and any adult would  Read more...

Budding Art Critic: Tackling SFMOMA

by Graham Charles

June 02, 2008

Don't try to do it all. That's my advice for museum-goers. It's not Disneyland. You don't need to run your preschooler from one line to the next all day long. Just find something your kid enjoys and stick with it. Hang around. Examine. Study. Bring crayons and draw a replica -- this is unusually effective. I get so annoyed when people say they brought their kid to the museum "once" only to have  Read more...