New York Children’s Museum of Arts (CMA)

In the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan, the New York Children’s Museum of the Arts (CMA) is an undiscovered treasure (at least undiscovered by me!). My friend and I decided to try their “Wee Arts” class. This drop-in class has a wide age range – 10 months to 3.5 years – so my two kids (almost 2 and almost 4) and her son (almost 4) could all attend.

When the class began, we started by sitting at a large round table. Mounds of playdoh were in front of each child, along with colored styrofoam popcorn and pipe cleaners. Both of my kids had fun with this – we made a flower arrangement of sorts that unfortunately fell apart when my daughter tried to pick the flowers. There were large sheets of paper on the walls and fat crayons – both of my kids contributed to the mural which was created during the class.

After the first few minutes of class, the teachers opened a partition and revealed more activities and later they revealed still more. It was done in stages to encourage children to move through the space. There were many age-appropriate activities for the kids to choose from including Moon Sand, a Flubber table, water painting with sponges and chalk, several bead and block games and a painting table. The back room was primarily for kids doing more serious painting. Normally my son would’ve been drawn to that area, but he got interested in the Moon Sand and the Flubber and he and his friend played with those for nearly the whole class. My daughter bounced around between several activities and had a marvelous time – she enjoyed the freedom of being able to choose her own activity. The last part of the class was music and story time which was engaging enough for my son to participate (he normally can be found wandering among the other activities in the room during reading and singing time in groups).

After the class, we got to check out one of the highlights of CMA – the ball pit. This is a padded area filled with large balls (around the size of exercise balls) where the kids can jump and bounce. The boys went crazy in this area and ran off a lot of energy and – believe it or not – my daughter was right there with them. She wasn’t afraid of the balls and was not upset when she got knocked around by them. The kids played in the ball pit for 45 minutes until we finally realized we were well overdue for lunch. We had packed our lunch which we ate in the lobby area. Next time, I’m hoping to schedule our CMA visit so we can enjoy lunch in nearby Chinatown. I’ve been craving dim sum!

CMA’s website – and accompanying blog – have a wealth of information about the various classes offered to the public and to groups, so be sure to check their schedule to plan your visit.

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