Author Archives: Janelle Durham

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About Janelle Durham

I teach Discovery Science Lab and Family Inventors' Lab, STE(A)M enrichment classes in Bellevue, Washington for ages 3 - 9. I am also a parent educator for Bellevue College, a childbirth educator for Parent Trust for Washington Children, former program designer for PEPS - the Program for Early Parent Support, and a social worker.

Summer Movies 2025

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Whether you’re looking for outdoor movies to enjoy those warm summer evenings, or indoor movie clubs for those hot summer mornings when you really just need some A/C, or a drive-in movie, here are some options in the Seattle / King County area for summer 2025.

Kids’ Summer Movie Clubs

As you may remember from your own childhood, these are probably the cheapest, easiest way to entertain your kids for two hours on a summer morning…

  • Cinemark: Wednesdays. Lincoln Square in Bellevue and Totem Lake in Kirkland,  9:30 am. June 2 – Aug 7. $1.75. Schedule here: https://cinemark.com/summer-movie-clubhouse# 
  • Regal Summer Movie Express, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 11 am. $1. June 10 – Aug. 6. The website doesn’t explicitly say which theaters are participating, but in the past, it’s included ,Bella Bottega, Redmond; Crossroads, Bellevue; Thornton Place, Seattle; Meridian, Seattle; Issaquah Highlands; The Landing in Renton; Alderwood, Tukwila.

Outdoor Movies

Below, I list all the outdoor movie series in King County. All information is current as of 6/9/25- but check individual websites for updates or changes!

Note: all outdoor movies start around “dusk”. In  the Pacific Northwest, that means starting around 9 – 9:30 pm in July and 8:30 – 9 in August, so outdoor movies aren’t compatible with early bedtimes.

Get some handy tips / etiquette advice for outdoor movies here and here. Top tips are: go early for good seating location, bring a sweatshirt and blankets, as the weather cools quickly after dark, and if you bring a chair, make sure it’s a low profile chair so you don’t block anyone’s view. It doesn’t hurt to have a flashlight to find your way to the bathroom or port-a-potty – just be sure to shine it only at the ground in front of you.

Tuesdays

Movies in the Park at Bellevue’s Downtown Park on Tuesday evenings, from July 15-August 19. Pre-movie entertainment will begin at 7 p.m. and movies will begin at dusk. Free. July 15, Moana 2; July 22, Detective Pikachu; July 29, Grinch, 8/5 Cars; 8/12 Miracle, 8/19 Monster U.

Wednesdays and Thursdays

  • Movies at Marymoor Park in Redmond. 7/2 – 8/20. $10 per person (5 and under free), $5 to park. Seating opens at 7:30 early in the season and 6:30 later on. Live entertainment, trivia, food trucks, vendors. Movies include: 7/2 Goonies, 7/9 Lilo and Stitch (original), 7/16 Legally Blonde, 7/24 Wild Robot, 7/31 Guardians of the Galaxy, 8/6 Up, 8/13 Pirates of the Car, 8/20 Wicked

Thursdays

Movies in the Park in Crossroads Park on Thursday evenings, from July 31 – Aug 21. Pre-movie entertainment will begin at 7 p.m. and movies will begin at dusk. Free. 7/31 Cool Runnings, 8/7 American Tail, 8/14 Wicked, 8/21 Wild Robot.

Fridays

  • Sail-In Cinema – Everett. Watch from your boat or the shore! 7/25 – 8/22/25. Free. Details TBA.
  • Movies at the Mural at Seattle Center. FREE. 7/25 Ratatouile, 8/1 Princess Bride, 8/8 ET, 8/15 Say Anything, 8/22 Wicked
  • Movies in the Park, Pierce County. Meridian Habitat Park, Puyallup. Food Trucks. 7 pm.  FREE, 7/11 Mufasa, 7/18 Wild Robot, 7/25 Dog Man

Saturdays

  • Cinema Under the Stars – Columbia City / Seattle. 8/9. Food bank donations accepted. Rainier Arts Center
  • Movies in the Park, Marysville. FREE. Jennings Park. 711 Capt. America Brave New World, 7/18 Fall Guy, 7/25 Inside Out 2, 8/1 Moana 2, 8/8 Snow White
  •  Outdoor Summer Movies. Kirkland. Note: they have a super bright screen, so they can start before dusk, which makes this a good option for younger kids – double features show at 6 pm and 8 pm. Juanita Beach.  7/12 Despicable Me 3 and Wonka; 7/19 Migration and Madame Web, 7/26 Kung Fu Panda 4 and the Marvels. Free

Fridays/Saturdays

More options

The Seattle Times lists additional movies in Seattle and Puyallup.  This article includes 2024 listings, with some I haven’t covered here.

Drive-In Movies

There aren’t many classic drive-ins left…  Here’s what’s still open within a two hour drive from Seattle:

The only other one in the state is Auto-vue Drive-in – Colville, WA. 6 hours from Seattle. www.facebook.com/Auto-Vue-Drive-In-Theatre-120740527937813/  There’s more info on the drive-ins in the Seattle Times article.

Movies start at dusk… see note above. If you go to a drive-in, PLEASE spend lots of money at concessions!!! That’s what will keep these classic theaters open in future summers!!

Learn more about these drive-ins. (And in this article)

Parent Guides to Media

If you’re looking for advice on whether a particular movie is kid appropriate, check out Common Sense Media which provides reviews of movies, books, TV shows, games, apps and websites. In their movie reviews, they look at educational value, positive role models, positive messages, violence and scariness level, sexy stuff, language, consumerism and substances, providing information so parents can make their own informed decisions about what’s right for their child.

Kids in Mind also offers film reviews which rate, on a scale of 1 – 10, the level of sex/nudity, violence/gore, profanity and substance use in a movie. They also give detailed descriptions of each incident they counted, for parents to consider.

I also wrote a post on “When to Introduce Your Child To ______” which talks about things to consider when deciding whether your child is ready yet for favorite series like the MCU, Star Wars, and more.

Other Kid Activities:

If you’re looking for other fun ideas for the summer, find outdoor live theater options, check out my series on “Cheap Dates with Toddlers and Young Kids”,  or reviews of Eastside Parks or find hands-on STEM enrichment activities for kids age 3 – 7 on my other blog at www.InventorsOfTomorrow.com.

For school year activities, if you have kids age birth to 7, check out info about fabulous parent education classes at local community colleges that are great for kids AND include parent education for you – register now for fall, before they fill up!!

Kids’ Books about Gender

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Some parents and pundits question whether we should be talking with young children about gender, and the reality is that we always have been! When I was a young child in the 60’s, pretty much every book I was exposed to taught a particular set of gender roles. I learned what girls were supposed to look like and act like and what activities they were supposed to enjoy. Then as a culture we began to talk a lot more about feminism and equal rights for women, and there started being more children’s stories about “girls can do anything” – they can wear clothes that are easy to move in, they can have any job. Over time, people came to realize that as we’d given our girls permission to wear anything and be anything, our boys were still trapped in “boys can’t cry” and only sissies are dancers” and “why would a man want to be a nurse.” So, again, we began to tell more diverse stories. And now, with increased awareness that at least 1% of people are transgender, children’s stories about gender identity are starting to become available. All of these stories can be “mirrors and windows” for our kids – mirrors when they see characters like them that help them to feel seen, and windows that help them better understand other people’s experiences.

I’ll share some book recommendations here – most are aimed at kid 3 – 5, unless otherwise noted.

Gender Roles

Gender roles refers to the activities that people do, as hobbies, responsibilities, or careers. Here are just a few that look at stepping outside of traditional gender roles, but there are probably hundreds of books on this topic.

Except When They Don’t by Laura Gehl. Talks about gender role assumptions and the fact that they don’t always apply.

Made by Raffi is about a boy who likes to knit even though others say that’s a girl activity (role).

Not All Princesses Dress in Pink (video) Shows girls doing many things we think of as “boy things.”

Paper Bag Princess. (video) For ages 5+. About a princess who saves the prince.

Princesses can be Pirates Too (Video) About a little girl who loves to wear pretty princess dresses AND wants to be a bold brave pirate.

Clive and His Babies (video) Shows a boy playing enthusiastically with his baby dolls. (Age 2 – 4) There’s also Clive and His Hats and Clive and His Art.

Rosa Loves Cars Video. (age 2 – 4). There’s also Rosa Plays Ball and Rosa Loves Dinos.

William’s Doll (video) For 5+. About a boy who wants a doll. Others tease him or try to change his mind, but Grandma listens.

Izzy Gizmo is just one example of lots of great STEM books about girls who like to invent.

Gender Expression

Gender expression is about how we dress, how we style our hair and makeup, and how we move (e.g. boldly striding along, or hunching shoulders and being small).

For example, Sparkle Boy and Jacob’s New Dress and Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress (video) are all about boys who like to wear dresses (expression) but appear to still identify as boys.

Julian is a Mermaid (video) tells the story of a boy who sees people dressed up as mermaids in a parade and tells his grandmother he is a mermaid too – she helps him to dress up.

Gender Identity

This refers to how a person sees themselves. Do they say that they are a girl or boy, and how do they feel when other people label them as one or the other.

If I had to choose just one, I’d choose Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity by Pessin-Whedbee. Age 4 – 8.

Introducing Teddy by Walton. (video) Teddy explains to a friend that in her heart she has always known she was a girl and wishes her name was Tilly.

10,000 Dresses (video) is about Bailey, who wants to wear dresses and identifies as a girl, although others label Bailey as a boy. 

In Phoenix Goes to School (Video), we meet a girl and learn about her, then she talks about going to school and worrying that the kids will think she’s a boy. She ends up having a positive and welcoming experience at school.

When Aidan Became a Brother (video) When Aidan was little, people thought he was a girl, but then realized he was a boy. This story is primarily about his family welcoming a new baby.

There are also some books that are metaphorical – they can be read as being about gender identity, but your child may not make the cognitive leap to understand that metaphor. For example, in Red: A Crayon’s Story, a blue crayon mistakenly labeled as “red” suffers an identity crisis and in Bunnybear, Bunnybear identifies as a bunny, and Grizzlybun identifies as a bear. If you’re just looking for books to encourage a general sense of acceptance of diversity and self-identification in your child, these are a great match. But if you want to specifically address gender identity, you will need to help your child see that message: “Remember that book we read, Neither? It was about a creature that was both a bunny and a chick, but not quite a bunny or a chick? That’s sort of like our friend Rex, who told us they are both a boy and a girl, and not quite a boy or a girl? They said that’s called non-binary. And remember how Neither felt sad when nobody accepted them, but felt happy in the Land of All where they were accepted? Can we be a Land of All for our friend Rex?”

Here are recommendations for more options:

And here’s my posts on Talking with Kids about Gender Identity and Are your Programs Gender Inclusive.

How Parenting Changes as Kids Get Older

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I often have the honor of working with parents for many years, from birth through age 9. The topics we focus on change as the children get older.

Stages of Parenting

Researcher Ellen Galinsky interviewed 228 parents (of 396 children) with diverse parenting experiences. She found common threads showing six distinct stages of parenting.

Stage One: Image-Making

Before the first baby is born, parents begin to create pictures in their minds of what parenting will be like and what kind of parent they hope to be. They began to adapt their home and their lifestyle to accommodate the child. They observe other parents and reflect on how they were parented to help create their self-image as a parent.

Stage Two: Nurturing

From birth through the first two years. Focused on physical care, soothing, snuggling, and playing. The main goal is to develop a relationship with their child. As the attachmentgrows, parents evaluate their priorities for how much time to spend with the baby versus other aspects of life, including other relationships, and how much of their identity is being a parent.

Stage Three: Authority

From about age 2 to age 5. Parents are more certain of their own identity as parents and of their relationship to their child. They begin to define the family’s rules, decide how strictly to enforce rules and what to do when rules are broken. The main task is deciding how much authority to exert over the child’s behavior versus how much freedom to allow.

Stage Four: Interpretive

The elementary school years. Parents evaluate their own strengths and challenges, and also evaluate their child in comparison to others and to their expectations. The main task is interpreting the child’s experiences as they are increasingly exposed to a world outside their family. Parents answer questions, and determine what behaviors and values to teach. They decide how and where the child spends time and with whom. They decide how involved to be, and when to make the decisions versus when to let a child make choices independently.

Stage Five: Interdependent

In the adolescent years, parents redefine their authority and renegotiate the relationship with their child, who is increasingly making decisions independently, out of the parent’s view. Parents need to trust that they have instilled good values in the child. They don’t allow their adolescent to have complete autonomy, but do allow for more discussion about rules.

Stage Six: Departure

As the child reaches adulthood, parents prepare for the departure, re-evaluate their parenting accomplishments and failures, and re-define their parenting identity and relationships. Parenting becomes less central to their identity and their daily lives.

Parenting in the Interpretive Stage

School and peer relationships assume the central role in the child’s life, and start pulling attention and energy away from the family unit. Parents have much less time with their children than before so need to be more focused on their goals for that time.

Here are decisions parents are making during their child’s elementary school years, as they realize the increasing separation between their identity and the child’s identity.

  • What kind of life do I want to provide? (And what can I afford to provide?) What do I say yes to in terms of new clothes or toys, and activities to do. What do I say no to? How do I manage the inevitable times when my child says “that’s not fair! All the other parents let their kids _____.”
  • How should I interpret the world for my child? For example, if they ask questions about race, death, sex, religion, and so on. How do I share my beliefs and values with them to give them an internal compass? (There are resources on how to talk about difficult topics at https://gooddayswithkids.com/better-you-than-youtube/)
  • How do I want my child to behave? (And have good behavior internalized as self discipline?)
  • What do I want them to be capable of and responsible for? (e.g. chores, practicing and playing an instrument or a sport) What new privileges / responsibilities will I introduce (for example: allowance, a phone, going places independently.)
  • How involved do I want to be involved in their life, at home and away from home?
  • When should I step in to help, and when should I back off and let them make decisions and try things independently?
  • How do I support homework?
  • How do I ensure they have the skills and knowledge to self-manage healthy habits like good nutrition, personal hygiene, and good sleep?
  • How involved do I want to be with the other significant people in their lives. (Friends, parents of friends, teachers, counselors, sports coaches…)
  • How do I support them when they’re navigating the emotional ups and downs of peer relationships? How do you monitor friendships while not overly interfering?
  • How do I hope to define our changing relationship? For example: how much do we hug, hold and cuddle as they get older? How involved are we in bedtime and morning routines? What do we do together for fun and connection?
  • When they are adults, how do I want them to look back on this time? How am I hoping they’ll remember what kind of parent I was?

A helpful resource for child development milestones for these years, and how to support your child’s growth and learning is: https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/ages-stages/school-age-children-development-parenting-tips/

Top Ten Takeaways

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I was just writing an end of year email to a parenting class, and wrote down my top ten takeaways from our whole year of learning together. They are also a fair summary of the information you’ll find on this blog:

  1. Every child is a unique individual and needs a unique parenting approach. What’s right for someone else may not be right for your situation. Trust your instincts and reach out for support when needed from people who understand kids like yours.
  2. Children behave better when they know what to expect and what’s expected of them. If a child is not behaving well, ask yourself: What support do they need, what systems would make it easier for them to be successful, what skills do they still need to learn?
  3. All feelings are OK, but not all behaviors are OK. Validate your child’s emotions and offer support, while still setting appropriate limits. Teach appropriate ways to express big feelings, and model self-calming skills.
  4. With food: parents decide when and where it’s offered and what is offered. Children decide whether to eat and how much to eat. With all choices: Parents decide what options are on the table, children choose amongst those appropriate options.
  5. Kids need time to run, to be loud, to be silly, to explore their world. Make sure there are a lot of “yes” times and places in their day. Taking small and manageable risks builds skills and independence, even if it means an occasional bump or bruise.
  6. We learn from mistakes. Embrace them! Teach your child the Power of Yet: “you can’t do it yet, but someday, if you keep trying, you’ll be so good at it!”
  7. Children learn best when they feel safe and happy, so play-based learning is powerful. Brains develop through novelty – being exposed to new experiences – and repetition – having the chance to do something again and again till they master it. Explore art, the outdoors, large motor play, building things, doing crafts, and more.
  8. Music and stories build language skills, vocabulary, memory, emotional intelligence, and knowledge of diverse life experiences. And they bring joy!
  9. There is no one right way to parent. If you, your child, and other family members are happy, healthy, and succeeding at your goals, then all is well. If you’re unhappy or not feeling successful, seek out new ideas and seek out support. (Parenting classes, counseling, support groups or just connecting with other parents!)
  10. You will have good days and bad days as a parent. When you have a bad day and are not the parent you want to be, acknowledge that, forgive yourself and commit to doing better in the future. When you are having more good days than bad, celebrate that! You’re doing a great job.

Here’s a PDF of those takeaways.

Top Ten TakeawaysDownload

100 Days of Ukulele

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For the 100 days challenge, I created a collection of fun songs for singalongs with video tutorials. Start reading here to learn about the challenge and learn more about Rise Up Singing, or skip straight to the song list.

Introduction

Cynthia Lin organizes a “100 days of ukulele” challenge, starting each year in March. Participants are encouraged to record a video every day of themselves playing ukulele and post it for the community to see. (Find it on Facebook, or her Patreon or on Instagram or YouTube using #100DaysUke2025.) The goal is to commit to a practice, and daily work on your skills. This year, I gave myself the challenge of playing lots of new songs, using each to practice and strengthen my: chord changes, choosing the best strum pattern and/or building my skills at finger picking. I figured I might as well record these as tutorials that I can share with others.

I chose to work with songs from the group singing book Rise Up Singing (Amazon affiliate link, or buy directly from the publisher). There are 1200 songs in the book! So, I am choosing some of my favorites / things I think may be commonly sung. Many of them also appear in the Daily Ukulele Songbook. (Amazon, publisher). Or they appear in the songbooks for the Eastside Ukulele Players group I play with.

Most of my videos will include chord diagrams. They contain at least some of the lyrics, and some contain info on how the chords align with the lyrics. If I don’t have all the lyrics and chords in the video, I will try to link to where you can find them. I do strongly encourage you to support the authors/publishers of Rise Up Singing and Daily Ukulele and honor their copyright by purchasing your own copy of each book. If you do singalongs in a group, purchase enough copies of the book for everyone in the group.

Rise Up Singing

Rise Up is a folk music singalong book, first published in 1988. It contains 1200 songs, sorted into 35 categories, well indexed by title, artist, and subject. For sheer number of songs, it’s incredible! In order to fit that many songs into a compact, affordable book, this is not full sheet music and comprehensive lyrics for all know verses. It just includes the lyrics and chords, not the melodies, so you either need to know the song, or look for a recording online to learn it. I love this book!

And… as a beginning musician, it was really hard for me to use it, even for songs that I knew.

Here’s a sample song. So the “C – F G /” means that for the first line of lyrics, you’ll play C, continue playing C, then F, then G. You have to figure out for yourself when to switch from one to the other. The second and third lines of lyrics are similar, then you’ll see for the fourth line, it just says 2nd. That means you play the second pattern. There’s a lot of thinking involved as you play, which was hard for me when I started.

The Rise Up Singing versions aren’t the fanciest arrangements – they lean toward using simpler chords and not a lot of chord changes, so in some videos, I include more interesting variations on the song. Also, I find the key doesn’t always feel right to me. An Amazon reviewer says “The keys chosen work well on guitar (tuned to key of E so lots of Es and Ebs and whatnot), not always so easy for uke players. I do find myself transposing on the fly.” I agree, so in some videos I offer a second version of the song, played in a different key than shown in Rise Up.

Song List

Here’s a list of all the recordings I did, in alphabetical order. Some are full tutorials, some are playthoughs of the full song, some just snippets… just what I was able to complete on that particular day of the challenge, depending on my other commitments. I starred the easier songs for beginners.

Simple Children’s Songs

I also have a series of videos made for preschool teachers or children’s librarians, using just a few simple chords on the uke to play these songs:

  • using C and F – Row Your Boat, Brother John
  • C7 and F – Skip to my Lou, Mulberry Bush, More We Get Together, etc.
  • C and G – Open Shut Them, Ring Around the Rosie, Clean Up
  • C and G7 – London Bridge, Looby Loo, Peekaboo
  • C, F, G7 – Twinkle, ABC, You are My Sunshine, Happy Bday, and more
  • C, F, G – If You’re Happy, Teapot, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Teddy Bear
  • D7, C, G – Old McDonald, Thumbkin, Coming Round the Mountain,
  • More Chords and Songs: Dm – Muffin Man; D and A7 – Bingo, A and E7 – Speckled Frogs, Em and B7 – Ants Go Marching; Am – Over in the Meadow