| |
A Locals' Guide to Bellingham's Treasures
 It’s Saturday. Rain is continually falling from sopping gray clouds. My five-year old has gone through every toy scattered on our carpet and is now beginning to vibrate with pent up energy. What is a parent to do on wet Northwest days like this? Luckily, Bellingham is home to several child-friendly businesses that offer an entire afternoon of fun and learning for under five dollars.
Many parents are familiar with Tube Time, that warehouse of brightly colored, interconnected tube mazes ending in slides and pools of plastic balls. This place is a great rainy-day energy burner. Bring your kids in and let them loose. The up, down and all around activity leaves most parents panting on the sidelines after half and hour, but somehow the kids go non-stop all afternoon. Tube Time offers excellent service for birthday parties, a blessing for any mother who has had to endure a dozen elementary boys in her home for an entire day. With a video arcade, ticket game room and pizza by the slice, Tube Time can re-energize any pale skinned kid tired of watching raindrops run down the windowpane.
If pizza and videogames are not your parenting choice, then check out the Children’s Museum at 227 Prospect Street. Exhibits are usually several months long and include all types of interactive activities to help your child’s understanding. Kids can climb and crawl through scenes that have been masterfully detailed to catch those little eyes. A reading area and an art room are always on hand for sharing a quiet moment with your little learner. Engaging your child early on with a fun museum experience will only strengthen their later interest in learning.
For those parents with older children who have outgrown the Children’s Museum, Mindport Exhibits offers both art and scientific oddity. Mindport is one half local art gallery and one half eccentric scientist. Activities involving magnets, electricity, sound, light and spinning tops will captivate the attention of parent and child. Personally, I was hard pressed to explain to my son the phenomenon involved in several of the exhibits. We both learn something with each exploration of Mindport’s marvelous machines.
Keeping your children unglued from the television set on those rainy months can be trying, but Bellingham does offer these great alternatives, and more family friendly businesses are on the way. So before your child begins climbing the cabinets or goes into cartoon coma, try one of these suggested businesses to get their bodies and brains going.
Jason Small
Pass on local secrets about dining, walking, biking, hiking, reading...anything about Bellingham's scene to jason@bellinghamplaces.com
|
|
