Family Open Play Classes
Two kinds of play in one room. Ages birth to 5 with a grown-up. Big helper older siblings welcome. One price for your whole household.
Family Open Play lets your child and your whole family experience both free play and guided play in a single visit, the two modes early childhood research points to as most valuable when they work together. In our expansive gym, your little one climbs, crawls, and explores wooden and soft equipment at their own pace, the kind of self-directed movement that builds confidence, coordination, and independent thinking. Each week, we design a fresh set of themed guided play activities, built by a Family Life Educator to benefit several ages at once and ready for you to guide your child through.
Parachute, bubbles, and music round out the session, always no-pressure to join with the group. You play right alongside your child, learning how they move and explore, and you take what fits your family’s mood that day.
What To Expect
A gym of wooden and soft equipment appropriate for ages 0 to 5 to experience free play climbing, crawling, and balancing at your child's own pace
New themed guided play activities every week, designed to benefit multiple ages at once
Parachute, bubbles, and music, led by the instructor and always no-pressure to join
Room to explore independently and play pretend
Every part of the class crafted on the Family Life Education framework
Designed and taught by Founder Kaitlynn Blyth, a Family Life Educator
How Happy Day Play’s Family Play Class Compares
Many play classes look similar from the outside. The difference is in how they're designed. Here's what sets the Happy Day Play model apart, from how we price to how every activity is built.
| The Happy Day Play Model | Typical Models | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of play | ✓Free play in the gym, plus guided play activities designed fresh each week. | Usually open play only, with little designed guidance. |
| How activities are designed | ✓Every activity is built on current child development research to benefit a baby, toddler, and preschooler at the same time. | Often one-size activities with no stated developmental basis. |
| Mixed-age by design | ✓Children learn across ages together, the way real families and the real world actually work. | Often sorted into one narrow age band. |
| The room | ✓A full, expansive gym with wooden and soft equipment, set up for real movement. | Often a shared, general-purpose space. |
| Pricing | ✓One price for your whole immediate family, every child included. | Usually priced per child, so the cost climbs with each one. |
| Adults in the room | ✓More than one grown-up can join your child. | Often one caregiver per child. |
| Commitment | ✓Walk-in. Come once or every week. | Frequently a paid term booked in advance. |
| Who designs it | ✓Designed by Founder Kaitlynn Blyth, a Family Life Educator, on the Family Life Education framework. | Often no stated developmental design. |
| Who teaches it | ✓Taught by someone credentialed for the subject. | Varies, and not always stated. |
| The grown-up's role | ✓Built in. You learn to guide and carry it home. | Usually supervision only. |
Why It Works
For your child:
Free play builds strength, coordination, and confidence on their own terms
Guided play activities add developmental design that's hard to set up at home
Exploring at their own pace builds independence and decision-making
Mixed-age play means siblings grow side by side, the way the real world works
For you:
You see how your child moves, plays, and solves problems
You learn simple ways to guide that play and carry it home
You get a calm space to simply be together
One stop covers your baby and your preschooler at once
Scheduling and Pricing
Select Saturdays, 10:30 to 11:15am, 2nd Floor Gym, Bernikow JCC, 1466 Manor Rd, Staten Island, NY 10314
One price for your whole immediate family. A baby and two older siblings pay the same as one child. $25 per family, $20 for JCC members.
Walk-in. Come once or come every week.
Save with a 6- or 10-class bundle, good across our walk-in classes.
FAMILY OPEN CLASS TESTIMONIALS
