July and August in a big city can be a treat–the students are gone, many people head off to their vacation spots, and daylight lasts well into the evening hours. Several nights, I’ve taken dinner outside for the kids, and we’ve waited for the first fireflies to appear before calling it a day.
The city summer has a less enticing side, however. It is often just too hot to enjoy the empty urban streets. Although the kids love the sprinklers where we live, I cannot stand being out in the sun or the heat all day–or for five minutes. And I am not the only one to get cabin fever from being inside our city apartment all day.
So after days on end of sweltering on the city playgrounds, we all enjoyed a newly built, thoroughly air conditioned play space this weekend at Apple Seeds on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The space is clean, colorful and geared toward city children with miniature neighborhood staples, such as an apartment building, deli, and taxi cab.
It was very easy to watch the kids from almost any spot–and there were some very comfortable places for adults to sit and watch, including the bench next to a huge Lego table.
The kids ran and pretended and climbed, made friends with other kids, and played many games of hide-and-seek with the very capable and kind Apple Seeds employee assigned to watch the room.
My kids are at very different levels of ability when it comes to physical activity; it was a joy to see them all play with so much pride in their tumbling and balancing and jumping.
Also, because our cell phone service was spotty down there, and my husband was kinda-sorta-working that day, we were happy to see they could accommodate this distraction as well.
Apple Seeds has a full schedule of classes for art, science, cooking and more, at both New York City locations. The kids spent a good deal of time thoroughly inspecting the classrooms. And they’re good.
The memberships are geared for families–all members can visit whenever they want. And you will definitely want to bring infants through older kids here. The classes and the comfortable play area offer what every kid wants and every parent needs for him or her: high energy physical fun and plenty of toys for imaginative play.
Apple Seeds is located at 200 West End Avenue, New York City. My family was given the opportunity to visit and play for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.
Mama One to Three 