ICE CREAM SOCIAL at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery (Sept. 21, noon-3 p.m.). Although the title of this free celebration sounds old-fashioned, you can expect much that is innovative, including vegan ice cream flavors. (Arrive early before the sweet treats run out.) Commemorating the center’s 25th anniversary, the afternoon will feature tours and drop-in activities, including an opportunity for children to design and draw uniforms that are inspired by the examples in the gallery’s show, “French Fashion, Women, and the First World War.” The social also offers two workshops that require registration and fees. Grown-ups can make an anti-fashion statement by fabricating unisex jumpsuits with the Rational Dress Society, a collective that seeks to end conspicuous consumption. The kids’ interactive workshop, Pictures Come to Life, at 1 p.m., is far more open-ended: The artist and educator Jeff Hopkins will invent and act out a story as he simultaneously draws it on wall-size sheets of paper. Afterward, he will lead young participants in a storyboard exercise to create their own illustrated tales.

212-501-3023, bgc.bard.edu/gallery

[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]

KIDS ’N COMEDY: ‘THE BACK TO SCHOOL SHOW’ at Gotham Comedy Club (Sept. 22, 1 p.m.). Some children don’t consider the return to academia even mildly amusing. But the stand-up artists — all tweens and teenagers — who perform with Kids ’n Comedy can always find something funny about it, if not downright hilarious, and you can enjoy their jokes at a Manhattan club with a child-friendly menu. The most talented students in an organization that employs professional comics to train young people how to write and deliver their own routines — the material is geared toward audiences 9 and older — these comedians promise sophisticated humor that is still clean. And how rare is that?

212-877-6115, kidsncomedy.com

KIDS EAT HISTORY: THE STORY OF SCHOOL LUNCH at the Henry Street Settlement (Sept. 22, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.). At first glance, a program about cafeteria food might not seem, well, appetizing. This lunch-and-learn combo (reservations are required), however, promises both delicious historical tidbits and flavorful dishes. Presented by two venerable Lower East Side institutions — the Henry Street Settlement and the Museum at Eldridge Street — this event will explore how Lillian Wald, the settlement’s founder, helped pioneer the concept of public-school lunches in the early 1900s, when many poor immigrant children got no midday meal. Those initial efforts included some sweet surprises — daily hot cocoa — and even attempts to incorporate young New Yorkers’ diverse culinary heritages into the menus.

212-219-0302, eldridgestreet.org

QUEENS COUNTY FAIR at the Queens County Farm Museum (Sept. 21-22, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.). Ever get lost in Queens? The experience will actually be fun at this annual festival, which will feature the seasonal opening of the Amazing Maize Maze, a labyrinth of tall corn stalks that this year is in the shape of the Unisphere from the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Taking place at a museum that is simultaneously a working farm, the country-style weekend will also offer pony and hay rides, tractor pulls, sack races, egg-on-a-spoon relay races and a petting zoo. You can even see an agriculturally themed magic show — “The Magic Bean” — in the family entertainment tent.

718-347-3276, queensfarm.org