Founder of Mommy Poppins
A fourth-generation Brooklynite, Anna started Mommy Poppins in 2007 to help families find the best things to do with kids in NYC, with a particular emphasis on sharing activities that are free, affordable, and enriching. The site, used by millions of families, has grown to become the ultimate resource for parents in the major US cities, plus travel guides for 100s of destinations.
Anna is a believer in the magic of summer camps, traveling with kids, and that you can raise kids on a budget and still have a rich life full of amazing memories. Anna's first Mommy Poppins book, The Young Traveler's Journal and Activity Book, published in 2025 and co-written with her daughter, Amelia Eigerman, brings that ethos to life, in addition to this website.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
It turned out that her interpretation was a little bit self-serving, but it got me to read the book, and it is a great book, so I forgive her. If you haven’t read Freakonomics
You could say Freakonomics
Submitted by Anna Fader on
I had to create a list of NYC food blogs for a project I am working on and, even though food blogs have nothing to do with parenting, I thought it might be interesting to Mommy Poppins readers. Hey, we all eat, drink, shop and cook. It's good reading. Enjoy.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
Get all your questions about NYC private school admissions answered in helpful forums hosted by the Parents League of NY.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
I actually just saw this cool toy storage advertised on Daddy Types and thought it was so great I had to write about it.
I don't know about you, but I hate putting things away. I like my apartment to be neat, but I also like to everything to be out enough so that I don't forget about it. To me the ideal way to clean up would be to just be able to toss everything into some cool looking piece of furniture that allowed me to organize the items by kind and also let me see what's in there. Clear plastic drawers or bins will do the job, but not nearly as nicely as these Via Toy Box units.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
I hate throwing things away that could be useful (even if I have no current use for them). And there are two things that I hate having to throw out maybe more than any other. One is styrofoam packing peanuts - first of all, it gets all over the place when you try to get it into a garbage bag, but mainly it just seems like such a waste. The other thing that irks my frugal, green side is CDs or DVRs that we've turned into MP3s or just don't need any more.
National Geographic Kids has a great site with lots of educational activities and games for kids. They also have a bunch of kid craft ideas, including directions for making a bean bag chair filled with styrofoam peanuts and a disco ball from old CDs. The perfect solution. You can reuse stuff you don't want to throw away, have a great kid craft activity and end up with some cool items for the kid's room.
I especially like the bean bag chair idea. It's so simple and clever. Just fill a laundry bag with styrofoam peanuts and tighten the draw string. Have your kids personalize their chair by drawing their name and decorating the laundry bag with puffy fabric paint for a little extra fun. (via AT:Nursery)
Find more great activities like this in our Indoor Activities Guide.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
Amazon.com is having a big 4 for 3 Sale
Submitted by Anna Fader on
A fairy garden is a miniature garden. It has dollhouse-sized garden accessories and miniature plants so that it looks like a tiny little garden for fairies. Kids love gardening, creating their own worlds and they especially love anything their-sized, so making a fairy garden is a great activity for kids.
Submitted by Anna Fader on
We talked about education for all of March. Particularly covering Under-the-Radar Preschools and Top Tier Elementary Schools in NYC. We couldn’t cover the whole topic in one month and we didn’t get to nearly as many schools as we would have liked, but schools will be an ongoing topic here.
We hope that we did give you enough information to begin to see the wide array of choices in NYC. We have many more schools we want to talk about and we will continue to write about NYC schools.
