Rose Gordon Sala is a mom to three but also a longtime editor and journalist. She's covered all the capital 'P' subjects, including pets, politics, PR, and parenting. She's written for MSNBC.com, TODAY.com, the New York Post, and Mom.com.
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The Brooklyn Children’s Museum’s new kids' play space is set to open Saturday, October 15 on the ground floor of the One John Street luxury condo building on Dumbo’s waterfront. The 1,850-square-foot one-room annex, dubbed Spark, will offer open play hours, classes, birthday parties, and special events for local families—all with the gorgeous backdrop of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
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Pups! PAW Patrol is headed to the stage for a live national tour hitting 90 U.S. cities, including NYC, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, Connecticut, the Los Angeles area, and Texas. The hit Nickelodeon animated show featuring a pack of curious and adventure-loving dogs opens in October, but tickets are already on sale for many locations.
PAW Patrol Live! Race to the Rescue, a Nickelodeon and VStar Entertainment Group (the same folks behind Sesame Street Live) co-production, will rely on live actors in costumes, although producers tell us that it will also incorporate the popular Bunraku puppet styling. The “pups” will sing and dance on all four legs.
Read on for more details on this new brand-new children’s theater production.
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For an easy day hike with the kids, New Jersey’s local “reservations,” essentially mini state forests and parks, are my family’s go-to. The 2,110-acre South Mountain Reservation in Essex County is one of our favorites. The recreation complex includes hiking trails, but also a zoo, fairy trail, paddle boats, mini golf, and a fantastic playground.
Read on for our best family bets for this Jersey green space, or check out some of our other favorite NJ reservations like nearby Watchung, or day trip ideas.
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NYC parents have gained a new option for scoring that elusive date-night and last-minute backup sitter. Hello Sitter, an app founded by a local mom, launched this summer with more than 200 sitters serving Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, including the neighborhoods from Park Slope to Williamsburg.
Finding child care always presents a challenge to parents. Finding it on short notice? As they say, fuggedaboutit. But that’s exactly the challenge that Lauren Mansell, founder and CEO of Hello Sitter, wanted to address when she set about creating the new service. Not only that, as a mom to a preschooler she knows it can be stressful to trust your kids with a stranger, so every sitter on the app is fully vetted.
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Finding the perfect beach read is something of an annual hunt for book nerds and casual readers alike. And passing that literary tradition down to your kids can be a great way to stave off those endless "I'm bored" moments, not to mention keep their brain cells firing over summer vacation.
Luckily, the New York Public Library recently issued its annual Summer Reading Challenge and Contest, urging kids to read at least 20 minutes a day. Along with that came a trove of book recommendations for kids, from baby board books to early readers to teen thrillers and everything in between. There’s even a book list for grown-ups, because, hey, kids learn by watching too, right?
So whether your kids need a little prodding to pick up a book this summer, or if they’re complaining they don’t have anything new to read, check out this sampling of great book suggestions from the one of the country's largest library systems.
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If we were giving out rewards to “most improved” NYC park, surely Governors Island would blow the competition away. The trust that operates 150-acres of the island under the direction of the city continues to open new parklands, add more kid-friendly features and expand hours, making it a must-do on every New Yorker’s summer bucket list.
Summer 2016 will see the addition of an entire hill of slides, including one that will reportedly be the longest in the city at 57-feet-long, a brand-new treehouse and the debut of the city’s only “adventure playground,” a free-for-all, kids-only build and destroy space. Oh, and it is all FREE, our favorite kind of summer fun.
Governors Island opens for the season on Saturday, May 28, Memorial Day weekend and hosts its annual Family Fun Day that Sunday. Not all the features will be ready for opening day, but some will.
Here’s a breakdown on what’s new and when it will be available for family fun on this car-less isle.
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If you’ve been searching for the right show to introduce your tot to theater, you can’t go wrong with Hatched. This sweet interactive children’s puppet show from Treehouse Shakers has just returned its dancing baby-animal barnyard to the NYC stage.
Playing this week at BAM in Brooklyn and next week at Alvin Ailey in Manhattan, Hatched follows a day in the life of a “just-hatched” chick, from its literal hatching forth from the egg onstage to the sun setting over the farm at day’s end.
We’ve recommended this show for first-time theatergoers in the past. But after catching it May 1 at BAM’s Fisher Hillman Studio, we wanted to share this full review with our readers.
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If summertime means theme and water park fun and roller coaster thrills for your family, then you’ll want to check out what’s new for the 2016 season at some of our favorite amusement parks in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
While the recent cool spring temps along the East Coast have put a hold on opening day for some amusement parks, others are already open for junk food eating, coaster screams and arcade fun. We found two brand-new roller coasters and more little kid friendly fare like a five-slide complex and new home for Jersey dinosaurs in our search across parks in the greater New York City area, including Coney Island’s Luna Park, and a bit beyond, like Six Flags in New Jersey and Edaville’s Thomas Land in Massachusetts to round up more than a dozen new rides, features and thrills for summer 2016.
Read on for all the details, including height requirements and expected opening dates.
