Boredom Banished by Harrison Public Library Play2Learn Festival

Kids and parents will experience more than forty play activities during the third annual Play2Learn Festival slated for September 8 at the Harrison Public Library and Riis Park. They will learn to make fun stuff like finger puppets and pinwheels, write computer code, plant a garden, and even build a working rocket! The entire award-winning festival is devoted to showing how children’s play can be a learning process based on fun.

“We want to banish boredom,” says Harrison Public Library Director Galina Chernykh. “The Play2Learn Festival is a wonderful demonstration of how our Library brings wholesome excitement into children’s lives.”

The Play2Learn Festival is set for Saturday, September 8, 11 AM to 3 PM at Riis Park in front of the Halperin Memorial Library in downtown Harrison. It’s free to the public and offers entertainment, refreshments, and prizes as well as an endless selection of hands-on activities, according to Festival organizers.

New to Play2Learn this year is the NatureStation, the Rye Nature Center’s new mobile workshop that features over a dozen ways for people to learn about the natural world. Also new are Cooking Crew, where kids will make a delicious, healthy snack, and Bruce Chung Tae Kwan Do, where they can experience the martial arts firsthand.

“We are excited to have so many new activities this year,” says Play2Learn Chairperson Fran Brescia-Coniglio. “We’re also delighted to showcase the volunteers who’ve supported us in the past like Nora’s Oven Works, Aw Yeah Comics, Fenom Fitness, and Mac Inspires.”

Eight play zones are themed for physical, music, creative, science, make believe, technology, construction, and sensory activities at the Festival. There are games, experiments, projects, and experiences for kids of all ages. Parents are encouraged to participate, too, since one of the goals of the festival is to expose them to the play-to-learn concept.

Admission is free, although families are asked to register in advance at www.harrisonpl.org/play2learn so the HPL Foundation can better plan for the event.

More than fifty sponsors and donors make the Play2Learn Festival possible, according to HPL Foundation President Dave Donelson. “The financial support from local merchants and individual donors is augmented by a huge corps of volunteers,” he says. “The Play2Learn Festival is a true expression of how much this community values its Library.”

The Harrison Public Library is at 2 Bruce Avenue in Harrison, NY. For more information, visit http://www.harrisonpl.org/play2learn.

For more information, contact Dave Donelson, 914-949-7483 or harrisonlibraryfoundation@gmail.com