The Children's Area was a magnet to young visitors during the Bicentennial Festival. The Hill and Sand area provided the three essential elements of earth, sand, and water, inviting children to transform the landscape with castles and forts, quarries and caves, as dreams emerged from the blank sand canvas. In the dirt-floored Marble Ring, parents could teach their children, and children could bring their parents up to date on the ways of aggies, steelies, puries, and cats' eyes. The Game Ring had a tree club-house and materials for building on additions; games of all sorts were also played here: tug of war, jump rope, squirt gun fights, four square, hop scotch, football.

In the Crafts Tents, the articles useful in play were constructed; children and adults made doll houses and dolls, folded paper cootie catchers, soap box derby cars, wooden sailboats. The Folk Swap Tent was for the exchange of secret languages and riddles, counting out rhymes and ghost stories. Here, costumes and puppets were also fashioned for the Stage, where children from local schools and clubs shared their performance traditions - clapping games, circuses, stunts, and parades. Sometimes adults taught the traditional games and playparties that they remembered so lovingly from their own childhoods.

The program was coordinated by Kate Rinzler, assisted by Saucie Melnicove.