Asep Irawan was explaining the history of a large colorful kite to a visitor when dozens of elementary school children, on holiday, ran into the Indonesian Kite Museum for a day of playing, exploring and learning.

'€œAs you can see, the place is way busier during school holidays,'€ Asep, a guide at the museum, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

This year, the school holidays for all educational levels runs from June 23 until July 12. However, most elementary schools in the city started earlier.

Asep said that one of the popular programs at the museum was the kite design session, during which children were given paper kites to color before they took them home.

'€œThey are happy to see our collection of kites or to watch our kite festival movie, but this design session is the favorite here,'€ he said.

The Kite Museum in Pondok Labu, South Jakarta, is just one of the educational spots in the city that are sought out by parents to enrich their children'€™s holidays with fun learning activities.

For example, the Jakarta History Museum on Jl. Taman Fatahillah No. 1, West Jakarta, will be presenting theater performances with historical themes through the '€œWeekend at the Museum'€, which is funded by the National Museum.

For this weekend, the events are part of the Kota Tua Creative Festival 2014 and will feature the plays Karamnya Kapal Tek Sing on Saturday, June 22, and Kuda Perang Pangeran Diponegoro on Sunday. The program is usually held at the flagship National Museum. Information on the event can be found on the Facebook page for '€œAkhir Pekan di Museum'€ and Twitter page @museum_weekend.

Besides museums, a planetarium is also a popular destination for children.

Planetarium Jakarta is located in the Taman Ismail Marzuki art center, Central Jakarta. It treats children to a visual display of stars and the planets.

Ryan Hidayat, a planetarium visitor from Depok, West Java, said that he took his 10-year-old twin sons to the show so they could spend their holiday in a '€œmore useful'€ way.

'€œI think they are happy to be here. Me? I am glad as long as I can keep them away from their computer games,'€ he said.

He added that it cost less than Rp 20,000 (US$1.69) for the three of them to watch the show.

Another educational holiday site for children is Dapur Anak (Children'€™s Kitchen). At Dapur Anak, children who are tired of math or science can participate in the practical application of those subjects to make a variety of child-friendly recipes.

'€œWe have a program called cooking exploration that using various recipes from all over the world,'€ Awaludin, marketing communication officer for Dapur Anak, told the Post.

He said further that there were also other popular programs, such as a table manner class and a cooking tour, on which children were taken to a food factory and introduced to healthy food.

'€œOur main purpose is to introduce food production in a fun way to children,'€ he said. (idb)

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