Things to Do in West Springfield

The Metropolitan Fine Arts Center, a multidisciplinary performing-arts organization for children and adults, fosters choreographed skills and creates performance opportunities in dance, music, and theater. Its students have gone to perform on Broadway, at The Juilliard School, and in highly esteemed companies, such as the Mark Morris Dance Company, The Washington Ballet, and Microsoft. Youth programs include musical-theater and fine-arts workshops, as well as ballet and other half-day dance camps for children as young as 3. Adult classes range from basic to advanced, including ballet, jazz, and tap lessons, plus yoga and ballet-barre fitness workouts.

A whir emits from the skee-ball machine as a long string of tickets emerges from its depths. With his parent’s help, the child counts them off, eager to see if he’s won enough for the coveted prize at the counter, or at least enough to trade with his sister for the window seat on the way home. At Majestic Fun, kids of all ages dive into an 8,000-square-foot spread of games, rides, and food. As Maximillion the Dalmatian and Ellie the Elephant wander around to give birthday kids high-fives or to steal a french fry, friends race each other at driving games or compete in furious rounds of air hockey. Tykes can put gravity in time out on the moon bounce or savor rides on the pintsize carousel. Between games, players find nourishment at the snack bar, munching on pizzas, sub sandwiches, and mozzarella sticks.

Barely an inch of wall space at Stars Beads remains visible. The rest hides beneath a rainbow of bracelets and necklaces, as well as dangling baggies of shiny beads, semiprecious stones, and the materials to turn them all into expressive accessories. Drawing from this stock, jewelry-weavers of all skill levels can plump up home arsenals or gather together in the shop to bolster the beading community. Classes led by experienced crafters guide groups through projects such as creating beaded clasps, learning the arts of metalsmithing, or using pearls to create bracelets and necklaces instead of decoy-gumball collections.