Los Angeles Kids Off The Couch: What's On Our August Radar!

Endless Days of Summer

Ticket Giveaway for Fantasia at the Hollywood Bowl

Did you notice that the city felt empty over the past weekend? While many Angelenos vacation elsewhere, we're enjoying quiet freeways and perfect weather. With blue whales cruising our coastline in record numbers and a bevy of outdoor screenings and concerts, what could be better than LA in August? Another month of summer, that's what.

Ticket Giveaway: August is our favorite time to spend an evening at the Hollywood Bowl, and we are excited about many of the varied concerts on the August calendar -- from Hairspray (this weekend) to the Buena Vista Social Club, classical concerts with Gustavo Dudamel and an evening celebrating the music of maestro John Williams. This month Kids Off the Couch has a Family Four-Pack to Walt Disney's Fantasia for Sunday, August 21. You'll see all your favorite scenes, plus a glimpse into the brilliant artwork and unfinished segments of this Disney masterpiece. The evening features the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and ends with fireworks. Tickets are still available to the three performances, Friday & Saturday 8:30 PM and Sunday 7:30 PM (August 19-21). Send us a note at familysavvy@gmail.com to enter our giveaway contest. Tickets will be awarded by August 10.

Cruising the Coastline: It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel and there is an unusually large congregation ofBlue Whales off Long Beach, reminding us who shares the waters off our beaches. Click here for our whale-watching Popcorn Adventure.

Elementary: Nothing says summer better than listening to music outdoors. Take the tram up the hill on weekend afternoons this month for the J. Paul Getty Museum'sGarden Concerts for Kids, and hear Frances England, Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could, and Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, Saturdays and Sundays, August 6 through 21, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM. The Skirball also has fun weekend programming for kids, so consider their Family Amphitheater Performances, Saturday and Sunday at 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM, or a fun water-themed family day on August 21. You can indulge a childhood fantasy of running away with the circus this Sunday morning at a free Family Flicks screening of Toby Tyler (August 7 at 11:00 AM) at the wonderful, pink Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer. Don't forget the very gentle Winnie the Pooh, a surprise hit about our favorite friends from the Hundred Acre Woods, still in theaters.

Middle School: If you have Tim Burton fans in your house, you will want to spend a few Friday evenings outside at LACMA watching some of his more popular films, like James and the Giant Peach, Pee Wee's Big Adventure or Alice in Wonderland. Films start at sundown and are free. On Thursdays this month, check out the outdoor screening lineup at Movies in the Park @ The Grove, including The Blind Side and Toy Story 3. To keep idle fingers busy (and away from texting), pick up a new craft this month. Our girls love to knit and needlepoint; knitters should check out Wild Fiber in Santa Monica, and Aristeia is a good place to get started on needlepoint. Make your own books at Scribble Press, or, learn to cook at Piccolo Chef. We have tried and tried to find a good woodworking class for kids here in LA (as you can see, this idea is gaining steam elsewhere in the nation) but haven't yet found one. If you know of one, please tell us and we'll pass it along to subscribers.

Teens: Sad that the X Games are over? Check out the US Open of Surfing, taking place in Huntington Beach through this weekend...also can be viewed live, online. Without homework, teens might have time to knock off two books -- Kathryn Stockett's The Help and David Nicholl's One Day -- before their film adaptations hit the big screens. The Help opens on August 10 and stars Emma Stone. One Day, starring Anne Hathaway, opens on August 19.

Adults: MOCA's Art in the Streets closes this weekend, so get downtown and, while you're there, check out The Lazy Ox Canteen in Little Tokyo.

Concert Goers: Pop stars Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are both in town this month (Perry at Nokia Theater this weekend and Swift at Staples for four nights, August 24-24.)

One More Thing: We are impressed with this beautiful digital book called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from noted children's book author and illustrator William Joyce and his colleagues at Moonbot Studios.

Kids Off The Couch

If you like what we do, please tell a friend to sign up!info@kidsoffthecouch.com

Kids Off The Couch March Radar: From A Dan Zanes Ticket Giveaway to Daylight Savings Time

Yesterday's New York Times Science section had a cool article about Academy Award winner, Natalie Portman. Turns out Oscar's black swan was a finalist in a national Intel high school science contest, and then went onto Harvard. The article quotes one of her professors as saying that, despite Natalie's active movie career, she never missed a deadline at school. We knew we liked that girl! Next week, we're writing about girls and science, so stay tuned.

PRE-SCHOOL and ELEMENTARY -- Caterpillar Adoption Days: Observation is the core of the scientific process, and we have a great way to start good science habits in your kids. Each March, Kidspace Museum in Pasadena hostsCaterpillar Adoption Days, allowing children to bring home a larva that will hatch into a butterfly under their eyes. Caterpillar adoptions begin on Saturday, March 19 and continue through the weekend of April 14 and 15, when the Grand Butterfly Release will take place. Click here to read our Popcorn Adventure about this great LA tradition.

TICKET GIVEAWAY - Dan Zanes: UCLA Live presents Dan Zanes & Friends at Royce Hall on Saturday, March 19 at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. UCLA Live favorite Dan Zanes and his band perform exuberant, handmade music for enthusiastic crowds of kids and kids at heart. The audience is invited to sing along with gusto before things heat up and ultimately evolve into an all-ages dance party. Click here if you'd like to be entered to win a Family Four Pack to the 2:00 show.

ELEMENTARY - Build a Better World: As part of the Build a Better World component of Noah's Ark at the Skirball, local charities participate in activities at the museum. From March 15-20, Habitat for Humanity will be on site, so drop by and learn how building houses can change the world.

ELEMENTARY - World Culture Watch: We're planning a summer vacation so thinking of exotic foreign locales is right up our alley. The Music Center hosts a varied series of free concerts throughout the year, and next up is A Gaelic Gathering and the Tinkers on March 19th at 11:00 AM at theWalt Disney Concert Hall. Experience the world in your kitchen by clicking here for a slide show of global soup recipes from our fave new cooking site, Fine Cooking. Or, to explore the world's museums from the comfort of your chair, check out Google's new Art Project. (Careful, you could get lost in here).

ELEMENTARY -- The Bard Still Rules the Box Office: Gnomeo and Juliet surprised everyone by beating out Hall Pass last weekend, so if your kids are tuned into the Shakespearean storyline, have them check out A Noise Within's latest production of The Comedy of Errors, playing now through mid-May.

MIDDLE SCHOOL - Jazz at the Fowler: The Fowler debuts a stellar collection of photographs and documents in Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassador's Embrace the World, an exhibit that will include several live jazz sessions over the course of the five-month show. We'll keep you updated on the ongoing family programming, which starts March 20 with Kids in the Courtyard: Peanut, Peanut Butter... and JAZZ.

MIDDLE SCHOOL - Monopoly Goes Digital: We loved the media kerfuffle last month when Milton Bradley announced a new version of its most famous board game. Monopoly Live will be available in the fall for $50, and pundits caution that making monopoly digital will eliminate the human element -- all that cheating, dealing and rule bending that kids learn to deal with during hours spent playing unsupervised games. For another humorous take our rapidly changing landscape check out this hilarious article, 8 Skills Our Parents Had that We Don't on a cool site called Matador and consider teaching some of these essential skills to your kids. (Or let the grandparents do it for you!).

TEENS -- Open Mike and College Night: We're obsessed with NBC's show,Parenthood, and love the storyline about Amber, a teenager who loves to play guitar. If your teens have the hankering, have them come out to a Teen Open-Mic Night at the Skirball Cultural Center, from 4:00 - 7:00 PM on Wednesday, March 23. If you're ramping up to the college process, our friends at Team Tutors have a special evening for you with a NYC-based admissions expert on March 23. Click here for details.

TEENS - Design Driven: Family Flicks at the Hammer is showcasing the Films of Charles and Ray Eames on Sunday, March 20 at 11:00 AM (free). Teens intrigued with design will also like the new exhibit at the A & D Architecture and Design Museum on Wilshire, Soupergreen.

DATE NIGHT -- Liz Taylor in Iran: Both Liz and the turbulent state of Iran have been in the news lately, so it's an interesting time to check out a series of photographs of Elizabeth Taylor taken by a young Firooz Zahedi on a 1976 trip to Iran. At LACMAthrough mid-June.

Outtakes: Our new obsession? The new blood orange flavor at Pinkberry. If you loved last week's Popcorn Adventure on LA's food trucks, check out TruckIt Fest this Sunday, March 6 from 11:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. There's still time to register for the LA Marathon. Consider walking the fabulous new route from Dodger Stadium to the Santa Monica Pier on March 20. And finally -- Daylight Savings Time begins on Sunday, March 13. Don't forget to push those clocks forward!

Kids Off The Couch

If you like what we do, please tell a friend to sign up! info@kidsoffthecouch.com

www.kidsoffthecouch.com

Paper Clips + Jewish Memorial = Kids Off The Couch...who will never forget

With Passover starting tonight, and the ongoing crisis in Darfur entering its seventh year, the timing feels right to speak with our kids about the tragedy of intolerance.

The politics of genocide are not kid-friendly. But our children had an easier time comprehending the sheer numbers involved in the Holocaust after we showed them Paper Clips, a powerful documentary about students in rural Tennessee who tried to collect six million paper clips and, in the process, collected a whole lot more: the story behind each paper clip. Collecting six million items helped them envision the victims as real people -- mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. To bolster the lessons our kids are also learning in their middle-school history classes, we visited a Jewish Museum's Holocaust exhibit, and were lucky enough to meet a Holocaust survivor who shared her history with us. Great stories like The Diary of Anne Frank and Hotel Rwanda humanize unspeakable portions of human history and it is by retelling these stories we work to prevent them from happening again.

Click here for a list of Jewish Museums around the country, and to learn more about the crisis in Darfur.