Best things to do this weekend on Long Island

Looking for activities on the weekend? We’ve rounded up some wonderful activities for you.

Traditional Chinese acrobatics and circus (马戏团) arts go hand in hand at a performance of “Cirque Mei,” 8 pm Saturday at the Patchogue Theatre. Mixing contemporary with traditional Chinese circus acts, the performers from the Hebei province of China present collective bicycle skills, foot juggling with umbrellas, ladder balancing, and hoops diving. Tickets must be reserved in advance.

INFO: 631-207-1313, patchoguetheatre.org

ADMISSION: $69

The “King of Rock and Roll” is in the spotlight once again during “Elvis Seen Unseen,” at NYCB Theatre at Westbury, 8 pm Sunday. The concert features never-before-seen video footage of Elvis Presley, and live music performed by the TCB Band.

INFO: 516-247-5200, thetheatreatwestbury.com

ADMISSION: $50

The award-winning actress and one of the hosts of “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg comes to Huntington to sign her new book, “The Unqualified Hostess,” 7 pm Sunday. The book gives her personal advice including tips on entertaining, setting a unique table, and decorating for guests. Visitors must buy the book at Book Revue to get on the signing line.

INFO: 631-271-1442, bookrevue.com

ADMISSION: Free; $35 plus tax (税款) for the book

The drip painting family workshop for ages 4-12 teaches children how to express their feelings creatively through art, 10:00-11:30 am Saturday. Meet at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, 830 Springs Fireplace Rd., for the workshop. Everyone leaves with a masterpiece (杰作) of their own.

INFO: 917-502-0790, imaginearted.com

ADMISSION: $40

I waited 14 years to do something that I should have done in my first year of teaching: shadow a student for a day.

This is the first year I am working in a school but not teaching my own classes. Being the High School Learning Coach, my job is to work with teachers and administrators to improve students’ learning outcomes.

As part of getting my feet wet, the headmaster suggested I “be” a student for a day: I was to complete all the work of a 10th-grade student: if there were notes on the board, I copied them as fast as I could into my notebook; if there was an experiment, I did it with my host student; if there was a test, I took it.

I could not believe how dog-tired I was after the day, because I literally sat down the whole day, except for walking to and from classes. We forget as teachers, because we are on our feet a lot — in front of the board, walking as we speak, circling around the room to check on student work…. we move a lot.

But students almost never move, because in every class, the expectation was for us to come in, take our seats, and sit down for the whole class. Therefore, by the end of the day I was eager to move. I had planned to go back to my office and write down some notes on the day, but I was so exhausted that I couldn’t do anything but watch TV and I was in bed by 8:30.

If I could go back and change my classes now, I would immediately change the following three things:

1. mandatory stretch halfway through the class;

2. put a basketball hoop on the back of my door and encourage kids to play in the first and final minutes of class;

3. build a hands-on, move-around activity into every single class day.

Peter Wohlleben, a forester from Germany who spent a lot of time observing and studying trees, became a star right off with a book that challenges ideas many of us hold about trees. The Hidden Life of Trees by him gives us lessons that can be useful for humans and inspires us to have a deep understanding of our lives.

In the book Peter mentions he learned young trees grow more quickly than old ones while in forestry school. The idea has been rejected by a group of researchers that published a study of 700,000 trees across every continent, and discovered older trees grow more quickly and healthily. As Peter says in his book, “being old doesn’t mean being weak and bowed.” How would humans understand this? Should we reframe old age from being weak and bowed to just being stronger in a different way?

When Peter realized “parent” trees force small trees to grow slowly, he was surprised. Two-hundred-year-old “mother beech trees,” for example, shade the young ones to allow very little light to get through, thus slowing their growth. In fact, scientists have learned that as they grow more slowly, they remain flexible to stand up to storms. This makes me wonder if humans grow “too fast,” especially as life expectancy increases. Do we need a better way to “pace” ourselves to be stronger in the long run?

Most trees grow strongly when they grow close together, contrary again to what Peter learned early in his career. Peter says that rather than separating trees, the better way is to make them live together. Even more interesting is that one study found that a group of beech trees shared nutrition so that all trees could do well and help weaker trees stay strong as well.

Trees communicate with and care for each other, share food, provide places for insects and animals to live, and can help humans stay healthy, so why shouldn’t we care for each other, share resources and live in peaceful communities?

Dale Bolton was driving to his home in Toronto when he heard the statistic that changed his life. It was 2004 and he was listening to a speech that said there were over 34 million orphans in Africa. “I almost ran into a tree,” says Bolton. “The number was surprising.” He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

That statistic on a journey led the Boltons to create an organization Thrive for Good, a not-for-profit that gives communities the resources and knowledge to help grow their own crops. The couple raised money for funding orphanages and digging wells. However, As Bolton spent more time on that, he learnt that the agricultural yields on the continent were significantly lower than in other parts of the world, and came to believe that the problem was the way commercial agriculture had been introduced.

Bolton and his wife Linda decided to start small: by funding and training people to grow modest organic gardens. Bolton started an organic farming course in Kenya. There, he met Mootlan, a farmer’s son, who also believed in the power of small-scale, organic farming. Together they travelled around to help communities start what they came to call a “life garden.” Locals didn’t think it could be done at first, Mootlan remembers. “But once they started tasting the food, they were like ‘Wow.’”

After that first project, things moved quickly. “When we helped one village, three more villages asked for help,” says Bolton. Today, Thrive for Good has 80 employees, and it has helped more than 1,000 communities create healthy meals for almost 30,000 people. Since 2012, they’ve run a training school in Kitale. “I’m still planting seeds,” he says, describing how trainees from Kenya — as well as 19 other countries in Africa and beyond — head back home with a newfound knowledge to feed their communities.