Search for gnomes in the Children's Garden using your best "I Spy" skills. Checklist provided.

Find out why and how some animals sleep through this time of year while others brave the challenging conditions of the season. Dress for a hike to spot any of the ones that choose not to snooze.

This program takes a look at how animals walk as a clue to identifying their tracks, then moves outside to search for tracks and prints. Dress for the weather with winter footgear. Registration requested.

Find out how wild animals survive winter's cold. Meet some live bugs and worms that spend the winter deep in the soil and help pretend animals find places that protect them from winter winds and snow.

Follow bear tracks, feel a bearskin rug and touch some real bear claws and teeth.

Snowflake "Learn to Skate" Clinics are an introduction to Rink Side's learn to skate classes. They are open to any child ages 2-11, there will be 30 minutes of instruction and 15 minutes of free time. There is a public session following the clinic and everyone can stay to skate! (Regular admission fees apply.) Sessions are held Dec. 26-29, 31, Jan. 2-5.

Musical that chronicles the sociological effects upon youth from fatherless homes and how they manage to uplift themselves in spite of it. Kwanzaa week holiday performances are Dec. 26, 27, 28. Regular run is Jan. 12-June 1, 2013.

From superheroes to undersea adventures, princesses to dinosaurs, Storytown takes children on an interactive, improvised adventure. The actors use kids' suggestions and ideas to create a different story each week. Kids design the setting and help shapes the story. Runs through the end of February 2013, then moves to Stage 773 in Chicago.

Interactive learning centers include a barn slide, apple orchard and chicken coop. Maggie, a life-sized fiberglass milking cow sponsored by Golden Oaks Farm in Wauconda, will be the focus of the new exhibit. Maggie is over five feet tall and features a working udder that recirculates the water that children "milk."