If you have a creative kid then your hands are always full …with papers, markers, scissors, tape, glue, glitter. It’s great to feed their imagination. It’s great to encourage them to build or color or make whatever they dream up. It’s great even if it’s hard to see past the glitter on the floor to the beauty of their masterpiece.
And sometimes it’s great to get them out of the house and let them be creative elsewhere.
The next time you’re looking for a way to entertain your creative kid check out these local options.
Assemble Pittsburgh
Assemble Pittsburgh is a community space for arts and technology. Your kids can blow off some STEAM at their various hand-on maker events, crafternoons, day camps, and learning parties. Most amazingly the seasonal “Assemble Afterschool” programming is offered FREE! Different programs are offered for different age ranges from Kindergarten thru 12th grade.
Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
The Children’s Museum is a great year-round escape-the-house option which lets your little ones run wild. With a Museum Lab, Garden, Nursery, MAKESHOP, Studio, Theater, Backyard, and rotating Exhibit your creative kids will be able to unleash their full creative potential. And the Waterplay floor, a definite kid favorite, is dedicated to those creative kids who love to make a splash while exploring the joys of manipulating liquid.
Carnegie Science Center
The Carnegie Science Center is another great year-round option for creative kids who have a science-bent. The Science Center is also great for those too-much-pent-up-energy kids – just let them loose in the Highmark SportsWorks section to bounce, run, and climb out all those antsy wiggles. Many activities are included with the price of general admission but be prepared to pay extra for access to special exhibits and the cinema shows.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The Carnegie Library isn’t just for reading. Frequent free craftivities are offered at various branches which ensures that no matter what part of town your creative kid lives in you’re sure to find a great option for nurturing their growing hands. Bonus: Check out some books while you’re at it to also nurture their growing minds. Save yourself from having to get out the craft supplies and head to the library where they take care of the setup and cleanup for you!
Snapology
Located in Bridgeville, Snapology offers hands-on learning in camps and classes. There is a fee for all activities, but it’s a perfect option for those days when you just can’t appreciate all their creative energy offers. Kids ages 5+ can even be dropped off in their Discovery Center for a few hours – while you leave and recover they stay and hopefully burn off all that excess energy. It’s a win-win.
KidsBurgh
KidsBurgh is a Pittsburgh-Kid-focused website which highlights local kid-friendly events but also offers parents ideas. Out of your own ideas to entertain your creative kid? Pop over to their website and download some Joe Wos cartoon mazes, coloring pages, or see what their latest “Maker Mondays” idea is. The activities don’t get them out of the house, but they can sure help keep your house a little less insane.
PBS Kids
Fortunately for all of us PBS Kids is not just for kids. Head to the “Grown Ups” section for age-by-age tips and activities for building social skills, literacy, math, science, and emotions. There are “Featured Activities” bound to spark your own creative side as you look to engage theirs. This is a great go-to option for finding a new idea when you’re just plain-ol’ spent on coming up with things yourself.
RADical Days
Pittsburgh is a wonderful take-care-of-your-neighbor kind of town and a great example of this neighbor-loving attitude is the annual RADical Days so lovingly sponsored by the Allegheny Regional Asset District. It’s a great time of year when it rolls around because admission to all sorts of museums and cultural spots are offered for FREE. It’s like they know just how hard it is to keep our creative kids entertained so each year they sprinkle us with several weeks full of opportunities to explore our town and keep our kids moving and grooving.
Festival of Combustion
Another annual event is the Festival of Combustion hosted by Rivers of Steel each Fall. Live demonstrations of iron casting, blacksmithing, glassblowing, and welding? Yup. Hands-on activities themed around “industrial arts and American crafts”? Yup. And each year they heat things up with their hands-on workshop. Your creative kid can explore iron-scratch molds, mosaics, raku ceramics, glass ornaments, hot crayons, and clay. Consider your kid entertained.
Enough talking about it already. Go out and glitter done.
