A youngster in the Moapa Parks and Rec Cooking Class got some experience flipping pancakes last week.

By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Over the past few weeks, the Moapa Rec Center has been buzzing with classes and activities that provide something for just about every child’s interest.

“The kids have been having a lot of fun,” said Moapa coordinator Gail Lindsay. “And I’m loving it too.”

Classes this summer in Moapa include instruction in golf, guitar, science, crocheting, beading, cooking, scrapbooking and lots of cheerleading teams. Each class runs once a week.

Lindsay has been instructing the weekly golf class for young kids age 5-10. Over the past month she has had five boys enrolled in the class which meets on Monday mornings out in the Moapa Park lawn. The kids practice putting on small indoor practice greens inside the rec center.

Students have learned beginning golf skills including an introduction to the range of the various clubs and how to read a green, Lindsay said.

“The grass at the park isn’t the best for driving practice but we have made it work,” Lindsay said.

The cooking class has also covered a lot of territory in just a few weeks. The group of six kids ages 6-12 began the class by making a cookbook that they could fill with recipes.

They used locally grown produce to make their first creation. Using zuchini picked fresh from the garden of Moapa resident Gary Leavitt, the class learned to make zuchini bread.

“They got to go through the whole process,” Lindsay said. “We had them pick the zuchini, wash it, grate it and then followed the recipe to make the bread.”

Last week the kids spent the class making a breakfast of waffles, pancakes and eggs.

The science class has been busy with various experiments and projects.

One of the favorites has been a horticultural project involving a simple nylon stocking. Each kid creates a character out of the stocking. Into the toe of the stocking the place grass seed and then fill up the rest with sawdust. They take the stocking characters home and water them every day. When they come back the next week, the character’s heads have green ‘hair’ growing out the top.

“Depending on how carefully they poured the grass seed in, they might have grass growing out of other parts of the face as well,” Lindsay said. “But those kinds of surprises just add to the fun.”

Each day of the week features a different set of classes in Moapa. And every day from 10am to 1 pm is the Fun Factor program which allows kids an open play time that will run adjacent to class times.

“And of course we always have the water park that keeps kids busy before or after their classes,” Lindsay said.

The first round of these summer classes will come to an end next week. Registration is going on now for the next round of classes which will begin on July 18. To register call the Parks and Recreation office at 398-7480 or stop by the office at the Logandale Fairgrounds.