In the meantime, we have our Staten Island Waterfront and St. George tour under way, the next one is Jul 12. We’ll be visiting the St. George area of Staten Island, the new esplanade and 9/11 memorial, the ballpark where the Staten Island Yankees play, the newly renovated St. George theater and more. Because as nice as it might be to get on the ferry and ride it back and forth between the islands, New York City has five boroughs. Getting off the ferry and visiting “Staten Island’s wonderland” is something you will wish you had done years ago.

Upcoming tours:

Summertime is here. For some of you that means choosing a summer camp for your children. For others it might mean taking a vacation to some far off locale such as Maine. And yet for others it means a staycation in the city. The City of New York and it’s rich cultural institutions make for a very fulfilling, if not blazing hot, summer in the city. Street fairs, art installations, Central Park, bike paths, movies under the bridge. Times Square is now essentially a pedestrian mall. City Parks has a calendar of free music, arts, theater, and dance that seem limitless. Not a week passes that doesn’t see a newspaper or magazine feature dedicated to the 50 best things to do this summer in New York City. Blogs like Mommy Poppins put together fabulous lists of things to do in New York City with your children.  NYC Dad’s group, an active participant at our Parenting Center, has also put together their own list of activities for you and your baby this summer in the city. The Rooftop at the MET Museum, the Watertaxi beach, and Governor’s Island are places mentioned. For some indoor programs, we’d like to mention our Indoor Playtime and Lunch Bunch drop-in programs as a flexible and easy option that run through July. Or check out all of our Parenting Center options here.

Have a safe and happy summer no matter where you go or what you do.

Our colleagues here at the 92nd Street Y have just completed a new interactive map for our camps program. It is incredibly extensive and detailed with everything you need to know about summer fun. We encourage you to click through and explore our beautiful Rockland County campgrounds in Pearl River, New York from the comfort of your desk!

Now excuse us while we hum the map song from Dora the Explorer.

As we noted previously, restaurant chain Johnny Rockets is a supporter of 92Y’s summer camps and scholarships, and provided tickets to the Opening Weekend Yankees game on April 17, 2009. That morning, there was a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of one of the Johnny Rockets locations at Yankee Stadium with approximately 30 of the Y camp kids, who were also treated to a special lunch by Johnny Rockets. It was a wonderful day with amazing weather and the Yankees won! Flickr user Affiliate has more photos from opening day at Yankee Stadium here, and you can see a few more photos of the Camps kids below.

We mentioned our second annual Father’s Breakfast that took place on Wednesday. NYC Dad’s Group was there and has high praise for the event. Raising children as a stay at home dad or mom, single or otherwise, can be a very challenging role, and NYC Dad’s Group was appreciative of the sense of community offered at the breakfast. They wrote:

Today, the focus was about us dads having a real, facilitated conversation about fathering. This small, intimate meet up event for dads only enabled us to go deeper into our role as a stay at home dad. We really were able to talk about some sensitive issues we are facing in our unique role of an at home dad, our comfort level in this role, and different approaches on monitoring our child’s development. This discussion allowed some of the dads as well as myself to break down some of the barriers to sharing our true feelings and made for a meaningful morning. In fact, some of us said we definitely need to find a way to incorporate a brief, facilitated talk time in our weekly meet-ups to spend some time talking about best practices as well as ‘vulnerable’ moments we went through that week - become a support group for each other! I know we are not recreating the wheel here & I am sure other dad groups around the country do something like this, but it certainly is helpful.

We take parenting seriously at the 92Y and have a host of classes and events for parents and children, such as:

Fathers and their sons seem to occupy an active niche on the internets. The recent website, ’1001 rules for my unborn son‘ scored a book deal in no time flat it seems, and blogs like Daddy Types and Metro Dads have loyal followings. Radical Parenting put together a list of the 50 Best Dad Blogs that’s well worth bookmarking. But for all the online opportunities to come together as dads, single or otherwise, we thought it would be a good idea to try another angle. And so this Wednesday, we have our Second Annual Father’s Breakfast: Being a Dad in Tough Economic Times. We’ve partnered with NYC Dads for this years event. The day will include Dr. Michael Thompson talking with fathers and answering their frequently asked questions regarding today’s economic climate: talking with children about finances, necessary changes in family life, changes in employment, job loss (whether this has affected your family directly or indirectly) and more.

[Second Annual Father’s Breakfast: Being a Dad in Tough Economic Times]

Upcoming Events:

We’ve know for a long time that children and their parents enjoy themselves at the variety of programs and classes we offer for families. I mean, you’ve seen the Shababa with Karina music video, right?

Admittedly we’re biased, we love kids and the 92Y. But you don’t need to take our word for it. Blogger “NYC Dad” is a big fan too, and took to his blog to share his opinion with his readers at the NYC Dad Group blog:

Their director, Sally Tannen, holds weekly parenting discussions every Wednesday from 10:30am - noon, covering a range of topics - eating solids, childcare, gender expectations, baby temperament, etc...I love going because it only costs $10, my son loves to play on the rug with the other babies, and it is interesting to hear the range of opinions from all of the parents in the group.

The Y is one of the only places that I am aware of that recognizes new dads and actually has a class designed specifically for new dads with kids from 0 - 1 year old. Their class takes place on Sunday mornings and is facilitated by a guy who holds a PsyD. The good: it is only for 5 sessions lasting an hour each, loosely structured and covers a range of topics, quality bonding time with your baby, you meet some great guys (I know because I participated in this class last Fall and still meet up with a lot of the guys for Sunday Brunch).

The Y has tons of programs for parents to be as well as new parents including “rock & roll Baby” for 5 - 9 month old kids which Jake and I just finished. They also had the author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child - Marc Weissbluth - speak to parents one evening in March. Our NYC Dads Group is partnering with the Y at the end of the month when Dr. Michael Thompson, author of Raising Cain and Understanding Your Son’s Development, and psychologist, speaks to us about being a dad in tough economic times and the joys/challenges of being a stay at home dad.

The event he notes above with Dr. Michael Thompson is our Second Annual Father’s Breakfast: Being a Dad in Tough Economic Times. That’s a great event to attend for those who haven’t yet taken advantage of our programming. You can come to a casual breakfast with your child, meet many other dads from the area, and build friendships with men in similar circumstances. You can view a complete list of of parenting classes and programs here. 

Argentinian-born performer, educator and cantorial soloist Karina Zilberman’s popular Friday and Saturday morning musical program at the 92nd Street Y is now on the CD, Shababa with Karina. The CD features a mix of English, Hebrew and Yiddish Shabbat-themed songs, including traditional folk tunes, well-known contemporary Shabbat songs and two originals written by Zilberman and 92nd Street Y music teacher Paul Williams. Children and adults from the 92Y community have contributed their talents to the songs.

The musicians (with the exception of keyboard/piano/organist Oded Lev-Ari) are all 92Y School of Music faculty: Randy Crafton, percussion; Rafi Malkiel, trombone; Amie Weiss, violin; Paul Williams, guitar/voice. The childrens choir is: Jakob Albanese, Gabriel Caplan, Natalie Caplan, Julie Levey, Nina Morse and Zoe Woolrich.

To listen to more song samples, hear what people are saying about the CD, or to purchase your own copy, please visit here.

Related:

Spring training is on our minds and we’re very excited about the opening of the new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets. (Gothamist has the rundown on the all-important food choices.) For Y Camps enthusiasts, former Mets outfielder Shawn Green returns for his one week baseball camp (also, former NBA All-Star and past 92Y Yomi camper Jamal Mashburn will be at the basketball camp!) and we’re pleased to announce a very special Camps contest, courtesy of Johnny Rockets restaurant, that gives you the chance to win tickets to Opening Weekend at the new Yankee Stadium!

Johnny Rockets is honored to support the Y’s summer camps and scholarships by providing a very special lunch and tickets to an Opening Weekend Yankees game on April 17, 2009. They have a bunch of tickets so there will be more than one winner! More info on the contest here. We hope this will be the first of many collaborations with Johnny Rockets.

Dr. Marc Weissbluth, sleep expert and author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, returns to the Y next week to share the science of slumber in two talks for parents, Sleep Smarts and Twins. The video above is from November 2007 when he hosted a panel of parents at the Y to talk about effective strategies for establishing healthy sleep patterns for their children—and themselves. These smiling parents are the best indicators of how good his advice is.

Looking for a fun way to start your Friday? Make your own challah in our Shababa Bakery and sing along with 92Y’s Karina Zilberman, educator and cantorial soloist.

Earlier this week, The Today Show did a segment on stay-at-home dads, an increasing trend in our economic times, which features one of our own Parenting Center dads. The Y fosters a warm and welcoming community with many programs for parents and children to enjoy together.

For fans of the ‘80s, here’s the old face of Mr. Mom.

Havaya International is a 5 week long life-changing opportunity for teens to travel like a local in both Israel and across the United States, while making a positive difference in our global village. Made up of eighteen American teens and eighteen Israeli teens, going into 10th-12th grade, Havayaniks will spend two and a half weeks traveling throughout Israel with local Israelis from the 92nd Street Y’s sister city in Ramat Hasharon and two and a half weeks in the U.S. getting the opportunity to share their lives with their Israeli counterparts this summer.

Why Havaya? We believe that fusing our values and our desire to see the world, through social justice, leadership training, and strong community building, we will create a better future. For more info—including sample itinerary, pictures, parent and teen testimonials— go to http://www.92Y.org/havaya

We’re proud to offer diverse and stimulating programming to the world outside of the walls from our corner of 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. If you were unable to visit us in person, sit back and browse the lectures and readings that we published on our blog and YouTube channel in the past year, just a small sample of the 2,000+ audience events that we host annually. Note: Since we also enjoy dipping into our extensive archives, a fair number of these events took place before 2008.

Argentinian-born performer, educator and cantorial soloist, Karina Zilberman‘s popular Friday and Saturday morning musical program at the 92nd Street Y, is now on the CD, Shababa™ with Karina. The CD features a mix of English, Hebrew and Yiddish Shabbat-themed songs, including traditional folk tunes, well-known contemporary Shabbat songs, and two originals written by Zilberman and 92nd Street Y music teacher Paul Williams (The Music Room), with children and adults from the 92Y community contributing their talents.

The musicians (with the exception of keyboard/piano/organist Oded Lev-Ari) are all 92Y School of Music faculty: Randy Crafton, percussion; Rafi Malkiel, trombone; Amie Weiss, violin; Paul Williams, guitar/voice. The children’s choir is: Jakob Albanese, Gabriel Caplan, Natalie Caplan, Julie Levey, Nina Morse and Zoe Woolrich.

The CD also includes a Shabbat story, told by international renowned storyteller and author Peninnah Schram, who has taught storytelling workshops at the 92nd Street Y for decades.

Buy the CD here!