Armenian Winter for Kids (part 1)

This year, with the panic of the Swine flu, the schools closed earlier than expected in Armenia putting parents in a very stressful situation. The lucky ones had grand-parents (Tatiks mostly) who took care of the kids while parents continued their work. Others tried to find last minute baby-sitters to replace the school hours. And the government, like other social issues, did not even attempt to present solutions for families struggling between career and family while having kids earlier than expected at home.

In our home, since we don’t have any relatives living in Armenia, we tried to rearrange our work schedule with our very dedicated babysitter and were able to continue our work while having the kids at home.

The challenge was to keep those 3 active and full of energy children busy during the day. And to do that during wintertime in Armenia is a little harder than during the summer season where you can find nice parks and outdoor play areas to visit.

So during this holiday season, I decided to post some of the child-friendly areas you can visit and entertain your kids during the winter season, all of them tested by my children (4, 7, 9 yr)

Konus Craft Center: Open everyday and has 2 locations; one on Vardanants street, the other inside the children’s library Khnko Aber on Teryan street.

The center offers a variety of good quality handicrafts easy to make for children between the age of 3 and up to 10.  You can drop buy with your kids and choose what you like to do (sculpture with modeling clay, glass painting…) from the shop and then you go to the handicrafts area with tables and chairs and they can start working with the help of one educator.  My children really liked it there, the crafts and products are easy to handle and very colorful. The place is also very friendly and safe. You can either sit/wait for them to finish or you can leave them with the educator and the group and come back after an hour or two. At the end your child can bring home her/his own creation. You can also buy some materials to take home with you and work with your kids. The material is a little more expensive than the usual but worth it for its good quality and safety.

Cost: 800 Drams per 45 min per child + the material (another 500-1000 Drams) approximately 5-10 USD per child per session

Info: Hanrapedutyun street 62/68A, phone: 010 52 71 75, 54 83 67

Challenges: sometimes the educator will push the kid to do “nice” things to have a nice creation at the end. You can tell him/her from the beginning that you don’t care about the end product and that it is important for you that your child enjoys her time and creates freely.