A private school on the border with Mount Rainier will hold an open house on Saturday, April 13.

Located at 2112 Varnum St. NE just across the border in D.C., Chance Academy offers classes for students who are being homeschooled and also runs a summer camp program.

Classes are focused on social-emotional learning to teach kids to be “out-of-the-box thinkers,” often involving field trips to local museums and cultural institutions.

Individual classes are designed to include students of different ages based on students’ skill levels and maturity. Parents can also sign their children up to attend only certain classes, as needed.

Qualified families can apply for a sliding-scale tuition or even free tuition based on their income and expenses. No family is turned away for an inability to pay.

Now in its 15th year, the program currently rents space inside Northeastern Presbyterian Church, but it is not a religious school or affiliated with any religion.

The open house will feature material from school classes on Singapore math, AMTA science and Fly Five social-emotional learning.

The open house will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 13. You can also learn more information on the school’s website or by calling (240) 746-2550.

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A new flagship LensCrafters store is open at the Station at Riverdale Park.

Located at 4530 Van Buren St., between Habit Burger and Denizens Brewing Co., the new store is part of an expansion for the eyewear retailer, which has over 1,000 locations in North America.

The store held its grand opening last week, debuting one of the retailer’s new flagship stores, with high-resolution digital screens and LED walls, as well as iPads and touch screens that let customers simulate various lens features.

LensCrafters has been leaning more into its reputation for high-end eyewear, launching new flagship brick and mortar locations in cities like Toronto, while reaching out to younger customers online through partnerships with the popular game Roblox.

The new shop is a rare retail store for the shopping center, which includes a Whole Foods Market, Le Fantome Food Hall, several restaurants and service-oriented businesses like a Gold’s Gym and a physical rehabilitation center.

All of the shops and restaurants in the shopping center are largely “Amazon-proof”, meaning that they aren’t things that can be done online as easily or at all.

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You’ll be able to see a partial eclipse on Monday, April 8, on and around the Route 1 corridor.

Although it lies outside the solar eclipse’s path of totality, the corridor will see an 87.4 percent coverage of the sun on Monday afternoon.

According to a NASA eclipse tracker, the eclipse will start at 2:04 p.m. in Hyattsville, reach maximum coverage at 3:20 p.m., and return entirely to normal at 4:32 p.m. Monday is forecast to be partly cloudy.

In an interview with DC News Now, Bowie State University professor Dr. Dawit Hailu said it won’t be until 2079 that Maryland will see a partial solar eclipse of this magnitude.

If you decide to go outside to see the eclipse, do not look directly at the sun. Instead, you can make a pinhole camera from household items to project an image of the sun onto the ground — a fun art project for kids — or you can buy special eclipse glasses that allow you to look up at the sky safely.

You can get free eclipse glasses at the NASA headquarters at 300 E St. SW in D.C. They are also on sale at Staples at 2950 Belcrest Center Dr. in Hyattsville and at Annie’s Ace Hardware at 3405 8th St. NE in Brookland. You can also get them free with an eclipse-themed drink Monday at the Sonic Drive-In near Hyattsville.

If buying online, make sure the glasses are made by one of the American Astronomical Society’s approved glasses sellers and makers, as some sites are selling counterfeits.

There will be free solar eclipse viewing parties Monday. Here’s a list below of some events taking place locally and nearby:

-The Hotel at UMD at 777 Baltimore Ave. in College Park (learn more here), 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.

–The University of Maryland in front of Martin Hall at 4298 Campus Dr. in College Park, (learn more here) 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.

–The College Park Aviation Museum at 985 Corporal Frank Scott Dr. in College Park (learn more here), 1:30 – 5:30 p.m.

–NASA Goddard Visitor Center at 9432 Greenbelt Rd. in Greenbelt (now sold out)

-Bowie State University at the Bulldog Football Stadium on Loop Road in Bowie (learn more here), 2 – 4 p.m.

-The National Mall in D.C. (learn more here), 12 – 4 p.m.

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A new doggy daycare business in Mount Rainier is now open and offers boarding and daycare services for dogs.

Located at 3415 Perry St., The Barking Lot offers cage-free boarding and doggie daycare for dogs of all sizes and breeds.

It was started by Hyattsville native Heather Ware, who has long offered dog walking, sitting, and boarding in the Hyattsville, Mount Rainier and Brookland areas and used a GoFundMe to help launch the new business.

The new location has indoor and outdoor play areas to keep dogs active and socialized and a climate-controlled indoor area with staffed overnight stays.

For dogs who are not capable of group play due to their age or temperament, The Barking Lot offers individual midday walks to ensure they get exercise.

The center will hold a grand opening from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 28, including food and drinks and live music by the Blackwood Trio. Friendly, leashed dogs are welcome at the event.

You can find the Barking Lot online, on Facebook and on Instagram or call (301) 302-8770 for more information.

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A new book club focused on social justice is meeting each month at miXt Food Hall in Brentwood.

Created by the Mount Rainier Branch Library and the Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights, the Solidarity Stories book club is for readers who want to engage in discussions about themes such as race, disability, LGBTQ+ rights, and gender equality.

The book club, which is open to all adults aged 18 and above, meets at 6:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month from March to November at the food hall, located at 3809 Rhode Island Ave. All events are free.

The first meeting, held on March 19, featured a wide-ranging discussion on Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” an apocalyptic science fiction novel about an America torn apart by climate change and wealth inequality.

The next meeting, slated for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16, will look at “Poverty, By America,” a critically acclaimed work by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond.

Other upcoming discussions will focus on “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei (May 21), “The Deep” by Rivers Solomon (June 18), and “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo (July 16), among others.

The book club chose miXt Food Hall because it features a variety of options from chef-driven local businesses, many of which are owned by people of color, plus a full bar with cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks.

“I love that the program allows us to gather with people in a vibrant and welcoming community space like miXt and share stories and experiences that help us to better understand the world around us,” said Caitlin Clark, a librarian at the Mount Rainier branch.

Along with Clark, the book club was started by Kyla Hanington with the Office of Human Rights and Audrey Lau with the Prince George’s County library system.

For more information and the full line up of books, and to RSVP (for free), visit the book club’s information page.

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A new farmer’s market will open in Brentwood in early May.

The Gateway Farmers’ Market will take place in the Bunker Hill fire station’s parking lot at 3716 Rhode Island Ave., on the border of Brentwood and Mount Rainier. It will feature vendors from around the Route 1 corridor and nearby farms in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Local vendors will include Riverdale Park bakery Manifest Bread, Hyattsville Latin fusion restaurant Cocineros, Mount Rainier juice and smoothie bar The Waterhole, Brentwood candle shop Purple Rose Wellness, and Zeke’s Coffee, which also has a location in the Woodridge neighborhood south of Mount Rainier that is undergoing an expansion.

At the Gateway Farmers’ Market, you can experience the true essence of local produce and products. You’ll find meat and produce from Singh Sugar Maple Farm in Marriottsville, Md.; Sharrah Orchards in Orrtanna, Pa.; Birdland Pastures from Manchester, Md.; Hog Haven Farm from Goochland, Va.; Garner’s Produce from Warsaw, Va.; and Pecan Meadow Farm in Shippensburg, Pa.

Other vendors include Two Story Chimney Ciderworks from Gaithersburg; Tae-Gu Kimchi from D.C.; ; Finesse Essential Body from Upper Marlboro; and D.C.-based Jarabe Gourmet Pops, which sells Mexican-style ice pops called paletas.

The Gateway Farmers’ Market will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays starting on May 4. You can read more on its Instagram page.

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If you missed visiting the Tidal Basin this year or avoided it because you hate crowds, you can still enjoy the cherry blossoms around the Route 1 corridor, especially this year when the blooming season is one of the longest on record. 

Cherry blossoms can be seen in several areas around the corridor and one of the best sites is the National Arboretum, 3501 New York Ave. NE, just a 15-minute drive from the corridor and home to a stunning array of cherry blossoms.

At the Arboretum, you’ll find a rich tapestry of 70 cherry tree varieties, including three unique hybrids developed on-site. These trees are thoughtfully spread along wide walkways and broad open spaces, offering you the perfect opportunity to capture that Instagram-worthy photo or bask in the beauty of the blossoms.

In fact, the Washington Post just named it “the best place to see cherry blossoms in D.C.”

The University of Maryland campus in College Park also has a number of cherry trees, including Okame, Higan, Kwanzen, Yoshino, and Sargent varieties. You can see a map here of all the trees on campus.

You can also find cherry trees all around the corridor.

The Neighborhood Design Center has even put up a map showing the location of each tree in Prince George’s County, which shows some surprising locations.

For example, the map shows a number of cherry trees located along Rhode Island Avenue just south of Mom’s Organic Market in College Park.

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