Kids Activities in NYC

If your child or children don't mind the loud music, you can go have Kiddie Cruise. It is a boat ride along the New York City harbor. There are three floors in the boat with simultaneous activities. There are face painting, puppet show, arts and crafts, magician, etc. There was just a long line for the balloon animals for kids. Some kids lined up more than twice. It is supposed to be a Princess and Pirate Family adventure so your child or children can come dressed up as pirate or princess.

Mommy and Me play dates are also fun. Check out Mommy and Me Groups in your area through MeetUp.

During the week you can take advantages of free programs offered by your library. My daughter enjoys Toddler story time and Arts and Crafts offered by the library for FREE. Check out Kids Events by the Queens Library if you live in Queens. If you drive, you can bring your child to different library programs for children near you. Listening to someone read a story other than his/her parents, not getting distracted by other kids and just focusing the on the story, sharing crayons and other materials with other children during arts and crafts are good training before he/she goes to preschool. 

Amusement Parks

Is your child already 33"? Does your child enjoy carousel?  Fantasy Forest at the Flushing Meadows Carousel located 111th St. and 55th Ave., Queens, New York is a good destination. They also offered free entertainment like magicians and clowns every Sunday and holidays between Memorial Day and Labor Day at 2 - 4 PM.

The Adventureland located in 2245 Broad Hollow Road (RT. 110) Farmindale, New York is a good destination for families with kids. They have rides for kids of different ages.

We are going to check out Dutch Wonderland Family Amusement Park located in 2249 Lincoln Highway East, Lancaster, Pennsylvania sometime in the future. I've seen pictures of friends and they looked like they really enjoy it.

Another amusement park worth checking over is Quassy Amusement Park in Lake Quassapaug, Rt. 64 (2132 Middlebury Road), Middlebury, Connecticut. We really enjoyed the paddle boat ride after all the kiddie rides.

Lake Compounce is another amusement park in Connecticut, located in 822 Lake Ave, Bristol, Connecticut.

Children's Museums

The NY Hall of Science in 47-01 111th Street, Queens, NY is our favorite we go there every year. My daughter just love the place. It is a good place to go when it is raining although they have out door playground as well.

Brooklyn's Children's Museum in 145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn New York. Totally Tots exhibit for children 5 and under seems interesting.

Children's Museum of Manhattan in the Tisch Building, 212 West 83rd Street, New York, New York has different exhibits for all ages.

If your children are into pretend play, they will enjoy Playmobil toys in The World to Play exhibit and Little West Side in the Creativity Lab. They will also enjoy Adventure with Dora and Diego, PlayWorks and City Splash.

The Staten Island Children's Museum in 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, New York offers different interesting exhibits like Portia's Playhouse, Ladder 11, House About It, among other things.

The Children's Museum of the Arts in 103 Charlton St., New York between Hudson & Greenwich streets where you and your children can explore art materials in WEE Arts.

The Long Island Children's Museum in 11 Davis Avenue, Garden City, New York is a nice place to visit. My daughter enjoyed making big bubbles. We enjoyed listening to our own recording in Communication Station too. But Tot Spot was really a big hit. She enjoyed sitting inside the toy crane and in the motorcycle in the gas station corner.

This summer we planned on going to Imagine That A New Jersey Children's Museum located in 4 Vreeland Rd., Florham Park, New Jersey. Heard from friends that it is interesting.

We're also planning on checking out the Wonderland exhibit in Please Touch Museum located in Fairmount Park 4231 Avenue of the Republic(formerly North Concourse Drive) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some friends also visited that place and we heard they had a blast,

Pick-Your-Own Farms near NYC

Going to Trehune Orchards in 330 Cold Soil Road in Princeton, New Jersey is also a long trip. It took us almost 2 hours going there and more than two hours coming back but they have dwarf apple trees.  Even my toddler has to bend to pick some apples.

 

Garden of Eve Organic Farm and Market in 4558 Sound Ave, Riverhead, NY might be consider by some to be a long drive from New York City but it is worth it. It is almost an hour and a half from our home but at least they have organic strawberries.

They have a playground in the farm and my daughter absolutely enjoyed it. I think she enjoyed the playground more than the straw berry picking but when she looked at pictures she always say let's go back pick strawberries again.

Family Friendly Places in NYC

If you have children you probably looking for places where to take them during the weekend. Exposing kids to different experiences build their language skills and improve their knowledge of the world. Children's Museum are a good way to start. There is Brooklyn's Children's Museum in 145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn New York. They have Totally Tots exhibit for children 5 and under.

The Children's Museum of Manhattan in the Tisch Building, 212 West 83rd Street, New York, New York offers cool exhibits like Adventure with Dora and Diego.

The NY Hall of Science in 47-01 111th Street, Queens, NY is a nice family friendly weekend destination if you live in New York City.  Your kids will enjoy it whether it rain or shine. My toddler really enjoy it every time we go there.

Another great family weekend destination is the NYAquarium in Surf Avenue & West Street in Brooklyn, New York. The sea lion show in the aqua theater is a joy to watch. The dolphins' antics are also amusing. It is nice to see so many kinds of fishes.

Take advantage of the zoo around you. You can bring your children to the Bronx Zoo in 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, New York  if they don't mind a lot of walking. The Central Park Zoo located in 64th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York is also a great weekend family destination. It is fascinating to watch the polar bear swim.

Another family friendly destination are the beaches. New York City has lots of beaches like Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk in Corbin Pl. to W.37 St., Boardwalk. If you prefer less crowd, you and your family can go to Manhattan Beach in Oriental Blvd. between Ocean Ave. and Mackenzie St. It has playground on both ends. You have to pay $20 for parking during the weekend and holidays.

Libraries always have a lot to offer children. The Queens Library have program for children usually during week days  that your child will enjoy. My daughter enjoys Toddler story time and Arts and Crafts offered by the library for FREE. Check out Kids Events.

NY Petting Farms

If you have an active  toddler, visiting a petting farm with rides and bouncers might just be perfect to channel that excess energy. White Post Farms Animal Farm and Petting Zoo in 250 Old County Road, Melville, NY can offer all these amenities. It was definitely worth the 30 minutes ride from our home in Queens.

You and your kids can feed the goats. Sometimes a cow is insides some of their pen though, whenever the cow tried to come near we just go to another stall.

It was surprising to see camel in a pet farm so it was a surprise.

There was a cute little village of colorful little play houses.

There was also a train ride.

We choose to let my daughter enjoy the bouncers as her last stop in the farm because we're afraid she won't go to the other parts of the farm otherwise.

The Queens County Farm in 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Floral Park, New York has a lot to offer young children, from hay ride to pony rides to pumpkin patch or corn maze, my toddler enjoy herself.

Green Meadows Petting Farm located in Floral Park, New York is also another great family weekend destination. They have pony rides, hay rides, chickens, sheep and a lot more.

Reading Websites

Reading during the early years helps the child in improving his/her language skills. Reading also helps a person be successful in life. It helps a person acquire a lot of information. Reading can also alleviate boredom or even shape a person's life.


Fortunately for us mothers, there are a lot of reading websites that would help us prepare our kids for reading or improve their reading skills.

Starfall.com is a website that teach preschool, kindergarten, and first grade children to read with phonics. This website offers exciting phonics games and online interactive books. It includes songs and a lot of animations for each letter of the alphabet, animated interactive books and other reading exercises. There are also a lot of downloadable materials such as handouts for classroom use from theStarfall.com's Download Center. Although Starfall.com has a free version parents can opt to subscribe for up to three computer at home and teachers can subscribe for their class.

Storyline Online provides interactive  stories read by Screen Actors Guild. Each book includes activities and lesson ideas. 

Kol Jr. Stories has a collection of online story books that are read aloud.

Clifford Interactive Storybooks offers interactive stories and games for early readers. Students has to click on the right word to complete a sentence on every page. 

In PBS KIDS GAMES children can choose reading games, letter games, spelling games, literacy games or vocabulary games among others to develop their reading skills.

Interactive Food Planner

As if obesity causing health problems like diabetes, heart disease, hyperlipidemia is not enough.  ABC news recently had an article about the link between obesity, sleep apnea and cognitive problems in children which reported that according to Researchers at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital and Pritzker School of Medicine "Cognitive functioning in children is adversely affected by frequent health-related problems, such as obesity and sleep-disordered breathing. Furthermore, poorer integrative mental processing may place a child at a bigger risk for adverse health outcomes."  Not only that, UMHS claimed that obesity causes psychological problems, like poor self-esteem and depression too. Thus, it is imperative for parents to be vigilant so as to have healthy kids considering that there are higher chances of obesity if a child has improper eating habits.

Since diet has an important role in having  healthy children it is kind of reassuring to know that there are interactive tools offered by the government for cautious Moms. In USDA's MyPlate, you can find MyFoodapedia, Daily Food Plan, Food Planner, Food Tracker and Child Cost Calculator.  With MyFoodapedia  concerned parents can have quick access to food information such as food groups and calorie count once the food name is entered in the box. Daily Food Plan is useful if a cautious parent want to know the daily amount of each food group needed. All it takes is entering information such as age, sex, height, weight and physical activity to receive a customized Daily Food Plan.  Like in the Daily Food Plan, Food Planner also necessitates entering some basic information to be able to use the MyPyramid Menu Planner.  After searching for food, a list of the closest matches will appear.  Once  the item is selected from the list a Mom can customize it. She can select the amount she wants to eat and assign it to a mealtime.  After she add this to her menu it will tell how this food and other foods she selected contributed to her daily goal or daily limit. It will also gives her daily menu report, weekly menu report as well as family menu report. Like wise  Food Tracker or MyPyramid Tracker gives parents a fully accessible version of a dietary assessment and planning tool. With  Child Cost Calculator parents can estimate how much it will annually cost to raise a child.