MOORPARK : Kids Learn, Play at Discovery Day

With a little imagination, children can buy groceries, dig for gold or even blast off to the moon in a spacecraft during Discovery Day today at the Moorpark College Child Development Center.

The event, a fund-raiser to purchase playground equipment for the center, is designed for preschoolers, according to the center’s coordinator, Linda Cravens.

“If parents are going to go anywhere for the day, the events are not going to be geared toward their children,” she said. “This event is much more age-appropriate than taking them to a carnival or a commercial event.”

For example, the kids will be able to shop for groceries, ring them up at a cash register and pack them in bags at a make-believe grocery store scaled down to kid size.

Other popular activities include making caverns in a block of ice using salt and colored water or mining for gold-painted rocks in a sandbox.

Discovery Day is held each semester. The spring event raised $1,200 and the center hopes to match that amount today.

The center will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The cost of attending is $4 per child and $2 per adult.