Families and kids stay cool in Boston with spray decks, water fountains

Tuesday's record-breaking temperatures didn’t stop kids and families from playing outside at spray decks and water fountains.

State officials opened more than a dozen Boston-area spray decks yesterday — five days ahead of schedule — to help residents cool off from the heat.

Elise LoSardo, a theater teacher at Bradford Christian Academy in Haverhill, said she took her students to the New England Aquarium for a field trip. After spending time there, she thought it would be best for the students to splash around at the Greenway Rings Fountain.

“We had a lot of fun in the aquarium, but this is the most fun I’ve seen them have probably all year,” she said. “I’m glad that we came out here and we got the rest of the chaperones to bring some of their kids out here too.”

LoSardo said watching her soaked-students wait for the water to burst out of the ground felt like an early summer vacation for her students.

“It feels like summer has started, that’s what it feels like,” she said. “We have two and a half weeks of school left, so we’re trying to make it through.”

Abir Fattah was with her two nieces and nephew. She said she wanted the kids to get out as much as they can while the sun is out and to avoid the forecasted showers during Memorial Day weekend.

“Anything that takes them away from their phones, I’m pretty clear about that,” Fattah said. “They don’t come to Boston often with their parents, so I try to get them out and see something new.”

Erica Sweetser is a Claremont, New Hampshire resident who was on a family trip to Boston for the week. They had planned to take the train down to Providence for the day, but changed their minds after seeing how hot it was.

“The splash pads keep us outside longer,” Sweetser said. “Instead of going back to our Airbnb and cooling off, we’ll just jump in a splash pad for five minutes and then go do something, and then jump back in the splash pad.”

Sweetser said her daughter doesn’t have many opportunities to use splash pads back in Claremont, so she tries to take her to the ones in Boston when she gets a chance.

“Literally in our town there’s been a debate for a few years about getting splash pads, and people don’t want to spend the money to do it," she said. "Not realizing it keeps you outside and spending money in the economy.”

Her daughter, Abigail, was happy to take a run through the water jets.

“I put on a ton of sunscreen because I’m very prone to sunburns, as my mother knows,” Abigail said. “And then I just wait until the water splashes onto me, basically putting myself in the way of the fire, or the way of the water, technically.”