Too Cool For School: Kids Activities, Clubs, and Teams Beyond School in Grand Forks

It can be easy for parents to find kids activities, clubs, programs, and sports teams  that are part of their school. My two favorites at Discovery Elementary are chess club and student council. But there are SO MANY other teams, clubs, groups, and organizations in our community. There really is something for everyone, and that’s what makes Grand Forks Cooler! Whether you want to join the youth orchestra, take a swing at travel baseball, perform under the spotlight, or compete in robotics, my best advice is to celebrate your accomplishments with ice cream!

The Fire Hall Theater is really for everyone and is so inclusive! I have done both musicals and plays with Fire Hall. Most of the shows I have been in have had at least three people who have NEVER tried theater before and at least three people who have been doing it their whole lives! Some of the best friends I have made are from different neighborhoods and schools and I would have never met them if I hadn’t joined Fire Hall. Even better, my theater directors have been in some of the shows that are just for adults, and I love watching them act too!

The Fire Hall isn’t even the only theater group in Grand Forks. There is also Summer Performing Arts which puts on AMAZING musicals in the summer with kids from Grand Forks, East Grand Forks, and surrounding areas and is for all ages from kindergarten through high school. East Grand Forks has their own summer theater program too called Summer Arts Stages. My mom did these when she was a kid.

Though I haven’t done a show with them yet, the Empty State Theater is a new company in town that will open for auditions whenever they have a new show on the calendar. The Empire Theater in Grand Forks has many workshops too, and they have excellent shows to see.

Cast parties are one of my favorite things and the best way to celebrate opening night is to share ice cream with the cast and your family!

I love performing arts, but musicals are my favorite. To prepare for one show, I took private voice lessons. There are many individual local voice teachers as well as voice lessons through Popplers and the University of North Dakota too. Both Arioso and Popplers are also a great place to learn an instrument. With 22 instruments that they teach, some notable options are piano, voice, and drums.

Even though we have great bands, orchestras, and choir opportunities through the school system, if you have a deep love for music, there are even more community opportunities. Consider signing up for private instrument and voice lessons, or you can audition to be a member of the Northern Valley Youth Orchestra or the Grand Cities Children’s Choir. Every semester we have a piano recital, and we always celebrate with ice cream!

Dance etc puts on two large shows every year at the Chester Fritz. The winter holiday shows always fill the balconies! In the studio, the dancers work hard and move beautifully to awesome music. They offer classes in hip hop, ballet, jazz, musical theater, lyrical dance, tap, and dance lines. You can be on a performance line, or on a competitive dance line.

There are other great dance studios in Grand Forks too, like Just for Kix, the North Dakota Ballet Company, the Paisley Ballet School, and the Dance Warehouse of North Dakota. One of my favorite things is celebrating a great show by going out for ice cream with my friends and family afterward. I also love watching my friends dance in other studios performances, and then going out for ice cream to celebrate with them!

A cool thing about gymnastics at Red River Valley Athletics is that they have a Ninja Warrior class for every age from four through teens! Ninja Warrior classes blend gymnastic with obstacle training, free style movement, and martial arts.

Cheer Tech offers tumbling classes as well, which my mom continues to call gymnastics. Eye roll. They are both fun, but VERY different. At Cheer Tech, you can join a competitive cheer team, or you can take classes and learn how to do things like back bends, front and back walk overs, and aerials. After nailing a front walk over, I recommend celebrating with ice cream! Cheer Tech isn’t even the only tumbling and cheerleading academy in Grand Forks. You can also take classes and join teams through Grace Academy.

North Dakota can get cold, so if you live here, it is great to see if you have interest in sports that require ice. There are more than you think! One group that’s on the road pretty much every week with the Grand Forks Youth Hockey Association. GFYHA offers hockey teams and camps for youth from age three up to high school. In Grand Forks, the high schools have strong hockey teams. In fact, this year our two Grand Forks high school teams played each other in the North Dakota State Championship! Red River took home first place, and Central was second. If you are not on your high school team, you can also join the Stallions. The Stallions are an alternative competitive hockey team in Grand Forks for high school students in the area who are not on their varsity high school teams.

Hockey isn’t the only ice sport. We also have two different figure skating clubs. Both Border Blades and Northern Lights offer classes and competitive lines. There is a large ice show every spring, and if you have never been, add it to your calendar! If you are like my mom and don’t feel confident wearing “boots with knives” (that’s what she calls skates), you can also consider joining stopping by the Grand Forks Curling Club. You must be ten years old to join a team and compete, but many of the youth have participated in state and national championships for curling!

Our elementary schools offer intermural sports, while the middle and high schools have dozens of teams. However, there are so many community-based opportunities too. The Grand Forks Park District and East Grand Forks Park District provide so many things to do from tennis camps, to volleyball, and outdoor swim lessons in the summer. I love outdoor swimming lessons, but pro tip: morning lessons in early June get a little too cold for me, so be prepared for that. Trust me. And if you love swimming you can join Wahoo aquatics and swim competitively.

You may not have guessed, but we also have a growing competitive lacrosse club for both boys and girls. Grand Cities Lacrosse is open for any kids ages 8 to varsity. Starting in kindergarten you can play flag football through Greater Grand Forks Youth Football and take to the court through Grand Forks Fast Break Basketball. My favorite is the Greater Grand Forks Soccer Club, which spends the entire summer on the road. On the other side of the river you can find the East Grand Forks Soccer Club. They spend several weekends in the summer on the field with friends, swimming after games, and filling up on ice cream at the end of the tournament. If you aren’t competitive, you can play soccer in the rec programs in the fall and spring, and summer and winter camps too. You can even do the rec and competitive programs at the same time!

Red River BMX is a cool club in town where you can race bicycles. If bike racing isn’t for you, you can still go to the track and watch the races. They even race balance bikes. The gyms in town also have a lot of sports teams you can join at Choice Health and Fitness and the YMCA.

Even though we live in one of the biggest cities in North Dakota, we have many clubs and groups that take advantage of our rural landscape.. You can join the Grand Forks County 4-H, the youth trap shooting league, local gun clubs, hunting and fishing clubs, and others also available through the Grand Forks Wildlife Association.

I love riding horses, but I just don’t have any more time to take riding lessons. But, I do have friends who ride horses, show horses, and even do barrel races. Grand Forks has the Red River Valley Horse Show Association, and in East Grand Forks there are several stables where you can ride and show horses including Point Paradise Stables, Stable Days Youth Ranch, and Grand Marais Stables.

There are a few different robotics and coding clubs in Grand Forks. I have competed with one of the robotics clubs where our team went from nine kids who barely knew each other to a group of nine close friends. We won the championship award at the qualifier and advanced to the State tournament. We didn’t win the state tournament, but we did win best robot design. One of my best friends is on the team and we celebrated our win with ice cream and a sleep over! Grand Forks also has an Anime Club, Masonic Youth Organizations like Rainbow for girls and DeMolay for boys, and both Girl Scouts and Cub Scouting Programs. There is even a fun program called BIO Girls that helps create strong girls with high self-esteem!