http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/arts/spare-times-for-children-for-jan-2-8.html 2015-01-02 00:10:37 Spare Times for Children for Jan. 2-8 A selected guide to cultural events for children, teenagers and families in New York City. === First Saturdays for Families: ‘Group Choreography’ Many established choreographers work with less experienced disciples, but Liv, Ms. Justice’s daughter, brings genuine expertise to the project. Her mother has been developing a workshop for children, and who better to serve as creative consultant? “I plan to introduce kids to the way choreographers think — how they work with bodies, space and time to make a dance,” Ms. Justice said in a telephone interview. Her program, “Group Choreography,” will be part of the museum’s First Saturdays for Families, a free series. The museum has devoted its most recent “I was working with spinning, and kids love to spin,” she said. This led her to think of using Ring Around the Rosie as a nucleus for her workshop. She said she also planned to present “an exercise about space” called the Garden: One child will come into a defined area and choose a place to lie down, stand up or sit. A second will enter and do the same, and then a third. After all have selected their positions relative to one another, they will “basically have created a spatial composition,” Ms. Justice said. This approach may help young participants understand how choreographers make pictures with bodies. By breaking down Ring Around the Rosie into its constituent elements and reordering or revising them, as Ms. Justice did with Liv — maybe falling down first instead of last — they may also grasp how choreographers can make a small piece of familiar material more layered, complex and unexpected. Ms. Justice’s workshop, which she will conduct three times on Saturday — the event is drop-in — is geared to children 3 to 9, but the museum will offer other activities, too. Young visitors can try figure drawing, using the dancers as models, or they can draw a movement-related word from a box — like “high” or “turn” — and illustrate it with their bodies. “I hope they come away with the feeling that dance is in continual evolution,” Ms. Justice said, “and that someday they might make a dance that is totally unique in its vision.” (10 a.m. to noon, 235 Bowery, at Prince Street, Lower East Side, 212-219-1222, For Children Ailey Family Matinees ‘All Aboard With Thomas and Friends’ ‘Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures From Playgrounds to Palaces’ ‘Cirque Zíva’ Elska Family Country Dance ‘Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas’ ‘The Gazillion Bubble Show: The Next Generation’ ‘Great White Shark’ ‘The Greatest Pirate Holiday Spectacularrr!’ Hands-On Nano Demos ‘Hansel and Gretel’ ‘Into the Third Dimension: 3-D Printing for Young Artists’ ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ MoMA Art Lab: Places and Spaces Museum of the Moving Image Workshop and Screening ‘Somebody Come and Play: 45 Years of “Sesame Street” Helping Kids Grow Smarter, Stronger, and Kinder’ Sugarcube: ‘Enchanted’ ‘Swamp Juice’ Three Kings Day Celebration/El Día de los Reyes Magos ‘Tiny Giants’ ‘A Voyage Through Jewish History’