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Happening Now
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Now through August 30:
Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.
It's a festival spotlighting the beautiful and gentle Walking Horse. Check out the very best of this breed, and also enjoy a dog show, trade fair, and barn-decorating contest. At the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration Grounds . (website) Hide details
Day Out With Thomas.
Younger train buffs will jump at the chance to ride with Thomas the Tank Engine. At this event, you'll also be able to watch Thomas videos and hear stories, plus enjoy the petting zoo and face-painting opportunities. At the Tennessee Central Railway Museum. (Tix) Hide details
Fairview Nature Fest.
A great way to kick off the fall season, with hayrides, live music, crafts, and visit to a living-history village. And for the grandchildren, Rodney the Magician will be on hand with his family-friendly bag of tricks. At the Bowie Nature Park. (website) Hide details
Tennessee State Fair.
At this annual event, you'll find cow-milking demonstrations, mule pulling, sorghum production, and— our favorite — racing pigs. Though state fairs revolve around agriculture, this one has plenty of carnival rides, plus a Kids Zone for the younger set. At the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. (website) Hide details
The 26th Annual African Street Festival.
A celebration of African heritage, with dance and music performances, ethnic foods, and a children's pavilion. At the Gentry Center, on the campus of Tennessee State University. (website) Hide details
Medieval Madness.
Step back to the Middle Ages and see how different science was. It's a day geared toward clearing up some of the old misconceptions our forebears held, and educating and entertaining your grandchildren. At the Adventure Science Center. (website) Hide details
Harvest Days.
Take a trip back to the 19thcentury, where you and yours will learn what life was like when folks had to make most of their items for daily living. See demonstrations of woodcarving, pottery, weaving, and yarn-pinning, and try your hand at making apple cider or a quilt "square." On the Grassmere Historic Farm at the Nashville Zoo. (website) Hide details |
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Help With This Page
In the City Guides section, you'll find the best things to do with your grandchildren. To get started, choose a city below or select from among movies, home activities or things to do in the car. Whatever you do, have loads of fun with your grandchildren.
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| | Affectionately known as "Music City," Nashville is full of fun times for you and your grandchildren: Beautiful parks, quirky shops, great eats and plenty of opportunities to teach them the two-step. Compiled by Kay West | |
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Science changes so rapidly it can be hard to keep up, but Nashville’s Adventure Science Center tries hard. For 60 years, it has been making science fun for kids, and giving grown-ups a little refresher course. The quaint exhibits of your youth have been replaced with high-tech multi-sensory experiences. But the most fun area for grandchildren is surprisingly low-tech, though highly physical in name and function. Body Quest takes kids through a giant heart and brain, challenges them to manipulate a hand and wrist, use laser guns to battle disease, and finally, take a ride on the colorectal slide. On the horizon is an overhaul of the Sudekem Planetarium. It will become one of the premier planetariums in the country with a rebuilding of its existing facility and the addition of a state-of-the-art Sky and Space Wing which will have 30 original displays and 63 interactive stations when it re-opens on June 28th, 2008.
Info: Admission: adults $9, ages 3-12 $7, 60 and older $7, and 2 and under free
Hours: Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 12:30pm-5:30pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Museums & Exhibits
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Aquarium
516 Opry Mills Drive
Nashville, TN 37214
(615) 514-3474
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Only the massive Opry Mills Mall is large enough to contain a restaurant that boasts a 200,000 gallon aquarium with floor-to-ceiling windows visible from every table. More than 100 species of tropical fish swim about in the tank, fed twice a day by a human diver in wet suit and blissfully unaware of the pescetarians on the other side of the glass. The extensive menu covers surf and turf, so if your grandchildren refuse to eat Nemo, the kiddie menu also has corn dogs, grilled chicken, pizza, and mini-cheeseburgers.
Info: Admission: varies
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11am-10pm, Friday and Saturday 11am-11pm, Sunday 11am-9pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Kid Friendly Eats
Athens Family Restaurant
2526 Franklin Road
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 383-2848
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Athens refers not to Nashville’s reputation as the Athens of the South, but to owner Dina Panagiotakis’s Greek-American heritage and a lifetime of working in family-owned restaurants in Athens and New York City. Transforming a former fast-food chicken building into a sparkling clean white-and-blue salute to Mykonos, Panagiotakis, and her business partner-chef Adel Elostta cater to American appetites for quintessential diner food from one side of the menu, and fans of Greek specialties like moussaka, pastichio, spanikopita, and lemony avgolemono soup from the other. Saturday morning breakfast is especially popular here. Panagiotakis’s teen daughter and son are typically on the floor or behind the register, and it only takes one visit to Athens before you and your grandchildren become part of the family too.
Hours: Monday-Wednesday 7am8pm, Thursday-Saturday daily 24 hours, Sunday 7am-2:30pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Kid Friendly Eats
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Aurora Bakery
3725 Nolensville Pike
Nashville, TN 37211
(615) 837-1933
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Owner Patricia Paiva is from Sri Lanka, and her staff is a veritable United Nations (the name tags they wear also proudly state their country of origin) but she caters to Nashville’s booming Hispanic population, and her baked goods are primarily Mexican and South American. Whatever language you and your grandchildren may speak, the shopping method requires no interpreters, just grab a tray and a pair of tongs and try to decide between the dozens of pastries, cookies, and breads, such as the bolillo; a French bread roll they use for a small menu of sandwiches. A square of their renowned house specialty, the indescribably delicious house tres leches cake, is a must.
Hours: Monday-Saturday 6am-8pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Kid Friendly Eats
Baja Burrito
722 Thompson Lane
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 383-2252
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The brightly painted Volkswagen bug permanently parked out front marks the spot of this cheery and very grandchild-friendly restaurant where you design your own burrito, tacos or salads. Anyone who’s ever been to a Subway knows the drill, except instead of a roll, you start with a tortilla — white, wheat or flavored — and build from there, adding your grilled steak, chicken, or veggies, then piling on rice, beans, cheese, and condiments. Counter staff rolls it up tight, wraps it in foil, slaps it on a tray and shoots it down the line to the cashier. Stop at the fresh salsa bar on your way to a table, inside or out front on the umbrella-shaded deck. Burritos are the bomb, but their fish tacos with shredded raw cabbage and white sauce have developed a near cult following.
Hours: Monday-Saturday 11am-9pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Kid Friendly Eats
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The storied history of this 5400-acre (in 1853) slave-worked plantation and thoroughbred nursery famous for breeding and training championship horses (Secretariat and Seabiscuit can trace their bloodlines to breeding stock at Belle Meade) encompasses 200 years. But as fascinating as it may be to adults, it will bore most grandchildren to tears. Pique their interest by pointing out the bullet holes in the columns that front the Greek Revival antebellum mansion that are a souvenir of the use of this plantation as headquarters of Confederate General James R. Chalmers. In 1864, part of the Battle of Nashville was fought in the front yard. Besides the Mansion, other points of interest on the property are the carriage house, stable, the original family log cabin from 1807, the dairy, mausoleum, a child-sized dollhouse, and an 1830s slave cabin.
Info: Admission: adults $14, ages 65 and older $12, 6-12 $6, 5 and younger free
Hours: Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 11am-5pm, last tour at 4pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Museums & Exhibits
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Opry Mills is the biggest shopping mall in Nashville, but Bicentennial Mall is the most impressive one. This 19-acre linear park at the base of Capitol Hill in downtown Nashville is an enlightening journey through state history with plenty of running room to keep active bodies happy and enough features to accommodate short-attention spans. At the entrance on James Robertson Parkway in the shadow of the Capitol Building, visitors literally walk across the 95 counties of the state engraved in granite. Take the western side of the Mall to view the 1,400-foot Wall of History, engraved with historic events that have occurred over the past two centuries. A granite pylon marks each ten-year period. Be sure to notice how the wall 'breaks' at the time of the Civil War to represent the divisive nature of the war on the state. On the eastern border is the Walkway of Counties that contains a time capsule from each of Tennessee's 95 counties that won't be opened until the state’s three-hundredth birthday on June 1, 2096; an event your grandchildren’s grandchildren might be on site for! At the north end is the dramatic and moving World War II Memorial, dedicated on November 11, 1997. It features an 18,000 pound granite globe floating on 1/8 inch of water that neither grandchildren nor their grandparents can resist running their hands over.
Hours: Mall and Park: dawn-dusk;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Local Unique
Bobbie's Dairy Dip
5301 Charlotte Avenue
Nashville, TN 37209
(615) 292-2112
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Show your grandchildren the predecessor of fast food drive-throughs at this blast from the past drive-in eatery that has been a Nashville warm-weather tradition for more than a half century. Save for an annual spruce up and paint job, the building has changed little over the years, and the procedure remains quaintly old-fashioned and leisurely. You park the car, place your order at one window, pick it up from another when your name is called, and carry it to the covered picnic tables on the side. Make an all-American meal of juicy grilled burgers (including a veggie version), dogs, chili, regular or sweet potato fries, but save room for the creamy soft-swirl ice cream in a cone (dipped in chocolate or butterscotch), a shake, malt, sundae, or the family-sized Kitchen Sink.
Hours: (April-October) Monday 11am-6pm, Tuesday-Thursday 11am-9pm, Friday and Saturday 11am-10pm, Sunday 12pm-9pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Kid Friendly Eats
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Bocce
411 51st Avenue, North
Nashville, TN 37209
(615) 298-3811
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Hey! Youse guys! Whatcha doin’? Wanna play some bocce ball? You and your grandchildren don’t have to speak Italian-American to play Italian bowling. But you might want to brush up on some bocce rules before taking to one of the two outdoor courts in Nashville. Bocce is played with eight balls (four to each team) in two different colors, and one object ball called the pallino or jack. The game is played on an enclosed dirt court. The winner of the coin toss rolls the pallino down the court and the game commences from there. Novices (like you and your grandchildren perhaps) will be subjected to completely unsolicited lessons, advice, and criticism from other experienced players. That's Italian.
Hours: Monday-Thursday 10am-7pm, Friday-Saturday 10am-8pm, Sunday 12pm-7pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Local Unique
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Grin and bear it at this delightful enterprise dedicated to one of childhood’s most cherished friends, the teddy bear. As the name implies, stores are laid out like a workshop, with stations that take bear builders through different steps that result in a very personalized furry friend to take home. Choose Me displays the options, with many styles of traditional bear or other cuddly critters like kitties; Hear Me adds a sound chip of either animal sounds, messages or songs; Stuff Me allows builders to choose their own level of plumpness and encloses a small satin heart; Stitch Me tucks everything inside and sews it up safe; Fluff Me grooms the bear; Names Me elicits information for a birth certificate and a moniker; Dress Me is a little bear boutique with clothing and accessories; and finally, Take Me Home sends grandchildren off with their new beary best friend. Parties are also available.
Hours: Monday-Saturday 10am-9:30pm, Sunday 11am-7pm;
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Age: Toddler, Child, Pre-teen, Teen
Shopping
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