North Shore Kid Stories, Events, Activities, Camps and Recipes

The Newburyport Chamber of Commerce invites you to welcome Spring's arrival to Newburyport at the 2013 Spring Fest!  Held annually on Memorial Day Weekend in historic downtown Newburyport, Spring Fest is a two-day festival featuring great live music, art, fine crafts, food from Newburyport’s best restaurants and Kid’s Korner featuring entertainment for children and families.

What would happen if you built a house for fairies? Chances are high that you would see nature's visitors first. After reading Fairy Houses (The Fairy Houses Series) by Tracy Kane, participants will venture out on the sanctuary to create our own homes using natural nonliving materials.

Sawyer Free Library has a fun filled morning of Screen-Free activities planned! Come to the library, unplug and play, read and create with friends! The Spring Craft Activities encourages interaction and coneecting with others without the use of technology!

The Fast Chicks 5k is a community fundraiser race that celebrates active women and raises funds for a selected charity each year.  There's also a FREE kids race - a 100 yard dash! Now in it's second year, the race begins and ends at Patton park and funds raise this year will go to the Community Giving Tree, a North Shore organization based in Boxford that provides gently used children’s clothes, equipment, and basic necessities for families in need.

The Long Hill Flower Fields need volunteers to help with the PYO flower programs and to staff their booth at the Beverly Farmers' Market. Teens and adults can fulfill their community service obligation with these programs.  Come volunteer at this beautiful location and help preserve a wonderful community resource!  Contact Beth O'Grady by email.

Enjoy a guided tour of Halibut Point State Park around the Babson Farm Quarry, unearthing the granite industry era followed by a traditional hand-tool stone splitting demonstration. Halibut Point itself is made of sheets of 440 million year-old granite that now cascade from rocky headlands to the abundant tidal pools below. The panorama encompasses views from Crane Beach in Ipswich to Mount Agamenticus in Maine and the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. This glorious natural landscape is breathtaking and inspiring.

Mud Puddle Toys hosts a game night at their Salem location for the Salem Chamber's First Fridays! Unplug from the screens and come enjoy the interaction that you can only get through playing board games and other hands-on games with friends and family! Snacks will be provided and they'll take 15% any one game purchased during Game Night. Game tables will be set up, but you are free to bring your favorite. Grab a friend or two, or the whole family for that matter and come enjoy the fun!

For one weekend every June, the barns at the Cox Reservation are transformed with color and form as paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolor, monoprints, ceramics and pottery, and sculpture in wood and iron adorn the walls, window sills, tables, stairs and every nook and cranny of our rustic barns. Artists generously donate 50% of their sales to support the land conservation mission of Essex County Greenbelt Association.

In every kind of weather, our favorite thing is to head outdoors to our spectacular local habitats! Each nature exploration will focus on the importance of a sense of place as we explore the ecology, sights, and sounds of our natural landscape. Wildlife, local and migrating birds, collecting techniques, and environmental awareness will be presented in a fun, energetic format that adults and children alike will enjoy.

Georgetown Public Library invites families and kids of all ages to participate in the library Lego Club. The library will be supply a large amount of LEGOs and an idea of what to create. Participants can work together as a group or individually to design a masterpiece. The LEGOs stay in the library on display for a couple of weeks.  In accordance with library policy parents are required to stay in the building in case of emergency.

This parent/child program is designed for the creative, curious, and active preschooler. Each 90-minute session offers a structured series of activities including original songs, movement, dramatic play, hands-on science, and a thematic snack. You'll receive coloring pages, song lyrics, vocabulary, a fun fact sheet, and a suggested reading list in an electronic goody bag! This months ISL will focus on the birds of Spring!