Copenhagen Landmarks Like the Tivoli Gardens Are Reopening as Temporary Kindergartens

With classrooms closed and many parents working from home during the COVID-19 crisis, students around the world are struggling to finish the school year. As Conde Nast Traveler reports, Copenhagen is finding a way to give young kids some much-needed space and supervision by turning the tourist attractions that currently sit empty into temporary kindergartens and daycare centers.

Denmark ran into issues in April when it began reopening the schools that had closed in March. To comply with social distancing recommendations, the buildings were no longer able to fit the same number of students safely, which left many children without the care and resources that schools provide. In Denmark's capital, educators are responding to this hurdle by expanding their classrooms to public spaces that are temporarily closed.

The Copenhagen Zoo, the National Museum of Denmark, the FC Copenhagen soccer stadium, and the theme park Tivoli Gardens are some of the sites being used as improvised daycare centers and kindergartens, where kids ages 3 to 6 will be able to spend their days playing at the facilities under the supervision of teachers. These places would be crowded under normal circumstances, but as long as regular visitors aren't allowed inside, they provide the perfect setting for students to spread out and get some fresh air.

Tivoli Gardens was initially set to reopen to the public on May 11, but in order to keep it free for classes to use, that date has been pushed back another month. In the meantime, children are making the most of their new classrooms. In the video below, which shows kids having fun on the park's playground equipment, teacher Sisse Trolle Laiq says, "We can't really use the parks these days because they are the recreational place for all the people staying home, so this is our park for now."