Things To Do in Claremont

The instructors at California Survival School impart decades of wilderness-survival know-how during outdoor, hands-on courses. Participants prepare themselves to live self sufficiently off the land using both modern and primitive techniques, which can come in handy when lost in the woods or the year 1412. During the Core Survival Skills Adventure Clinic, up to 30 students spend five hours learning to create fire using only sticks, build shelters with natural materials, purify water, and feed themselves off the land. The Ancient Artisans Workshop teaches novices how to fashion crude implements from scratch with materials found in nature, and how to use them while out in the wilderness. California Survival School also offers team-building workshops and private events.

Giant Paintball's five locations spider across Southern California, causing flickering rainbows of color that splatter players failing to find cover. Shelter such as castle walls or Old West storefronts dot fields at the Alpine and Lakeside locations, and in Bellflower, Hollywood Sports places players in a 23-acre universe populated with authentic movie sets from the likes of Starship Troopers and Godzilla. At SC Village in Chino, camouflaged paintballers trek through 25 fields of jungle and desert landscape, popping off rounds from behind mesh-covered tanks and army-green helicopters. The wide open battle zones of California Paintball Park in Castaic, meanwhile, challenges competitors' long-distance sharpshooting as they navigate gigantic wooden spindles and wooden forts.

At each of Giant Paintball's sprawling venues, teams rent gear such as Tippmann guns and buy battle-proven equipment at their pro shops. Players also engage in airsoft matches—a game that uses plastic BBs instead of paintballs–at the Hollywood Sports and SC Village locations. Rock climbing, BMX racing, indoor soccer, a two-story arcade, a restaurant, and other athletic diversions can also be found at Hollywood Sports enormous entertainment complex.

Both offers include use of a ball machine for a week and a 30-minute video swing analysis.

Plants, mankind’s greatest enemy, are finally on the ropes thanks to global warming. Teach your children how to hunt the last of these enormous nitrogen junkies by observing them in captivity with today's Groupon. For $30, you'll get a yearlong family membership to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (a $60 value). Founded in 1927, the garden is now the largest living museum exhibit of California’s native plants.

A family membership to the garden provides two adult membership cards, free admission for children of the household, a quarterly newsletter, a 10% discount in the Garden Shop, discounts on classes, early admission to plant sales, late release from plant variety shows, a one-year subscription to Better Homes and Gardens magazine, and more. Open year-round, the garden offers a rotating cast of floral stars depending on the season. The winter collection, ending in early March, features manzanitas, while spring will offer a colorful bouquet of spring wildflowers, perennials, and shrubs. During the summer and fall, the garden will parade an array of native fruits and seeds—in the winter, the garden will ice parade them.

Rancho Santa Ana supplements its seasonal offerings with a busy calendar of events that are educational and inspirational. On March 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Rancho Santa Ana will sell a variety of California native wildflowers that can turn any home garden into a home garden with California native wildflowers. From April 2-4, browse a special selection of Pacific Coast hybrid irises and coral bells. On May 7, come for National Public Gardens Day, or on May 23, observe Mafia Day by bringing the corpse of your favorite stoolie to fertilize the wild lilacs.

This Groupon is not available for current members of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.

Reviews

The Los Angeles Times has featured Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, saying:

• Prepare for romance. There is nothing that quite compares with the first stroll through Rancho. – Emily Green

Nine Yelpers give the garden a 4.5-star average, and three Insider Pagers give it five:

• I love this garden! This is the best place to see California native plants in a garden setting. There is a wonderful wildflower garden in the spring, and the entrance goes through a lovely desert garden. – Naomi F., Insider Pages
• Enjoy a stroll through this beautiful botanic garden dedicated to California's native plants. 86 acres of paths taking you on a journey into nature. – Ann F., Insider Pages

In 1976, Joan Barnes—a Californian mom frustrated with the lack of spaces where she could take her kids for safe and age-appropriate play time—took matters into her own hands and founded Gymboree Play & Music. In the decades since Gymboree’s founding, Joan’s vision of a safe place where youngsters could build confidence and creativity has come to fruition and spread to 30 countries around the globe. Staffed by attentive and expertly trained instructors, each Gymboree outpost adheres to a curriculum of activities designed by experts to foster the development of children’s’ cognitive, physical, and social skills through structured play and close readings of Goodnight Moon. The staffers also conduct entertaining classes that cover subjects ranging from music to sports, imparting valuable lessons of imagination and physical activity to developing minds. To further set apart her business, Barnes employed nationally renowned playground designer Jay Beck to design the proprietary play equipment at her centers.

Resembling a space ship abandoned by aliens who had recently time-traveled to hang out with Le Corbusier, The Glass House is a portal to rock and dance sounds for music-lovers of all ages. It’s also a cornerstone of downtown Pomona’s close-knit arts district, surrounded by record stores, cafes, and vintage shops. Holiday-themed shows and fundraising concerts join young, on-the-rise bands on the calendar, along with established favorites such as New Found Glory and The Faint.

For more than 15 years, Marshall Canyon Equestrian Center has welcomed horse enthusiasts for riding lessons and gallops across its sylvan expanse. Guided trail rides require no previous horseback experience, leading as many as 10 riders to witness area wildlife, rumble past clear babbling streams, and admire flowers left by spurned centaur lovers. The center’s instructors, Jennifer and Donna, lead lessons in the riding disciplines of Western and English, specializing in teaching new riders proper horsemanship essentials in the well-lit arena. Marshall Canyon also boards horses in fully covered 16’x16’ stalls, where they enjoy daily cleaning and healthy portions of alfalfa.