Highland Street Free Fun Friday
Friday

The summer’s final Free Fun Friday wraps up with free admission to five museums: JFK Library & Museum, Plimoth Plantation, The Discovery Museums, MASS MoCA, and EcoTarium. FREE

Labor Day Weekend Family Fun - USS Constitution Museum , Charlestown
Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Kids can experience what life at sea on board USS Constitution during the War of 1812 was like, when sailors hardly ever had a day off from their chores through hands-on activities, demonstrations, artifacts, and exhibits. FREE; donations encouraged

Hyde Park Jazz Fest - DCR Martini Shell, Boston
Saturday

Celebrate Labor Day weekend with a jazz festival featuring local award-winning artists. Bring a blanket and a picnic and enjoy a relaxing end-of-summer serenade. FREE

Gloucester Schooner Festival - Gloucester
Saturday-Sunday

Participating vessels come from ports along the Eastern Seaboard and range from 19 feet to over 100 feet in length. You will see new boats and old boats, from newly built to over 100 years old.

The Mayor’s Race, the major event of the festival, takes place on Sunday, with over 20 schooners expected to compete for the Esperanto Cup, the Cameron Cup, and the Ramsey Plate. Racing starts on Saturday afternoon with seven classes of traditional small craft, consisting of approximately 50 vessels from 19 to 45 feet long. FREE to watch

Maritime Gloucester Heritage Day - Gloucester
Saturday

Maritime Gloucester, formerly known as The Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center, holds its 9th annual Heritage Day, during which exhibits and aquarium are open free of charge throughout the day. The Schooner Ardelle is berthed at its new home, the Maritime Gloucester. The Ardelle, built and operated by Harold Burnham, will be joined at the dock by other visiting schooners in Gloucester for the Schooner Festival. FREE

King Richard's Renaissance Faire - Carver
Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Families can find plenty of entertainment, rides and skilled games on the King Richard’s Faire’s 80-acre site. Hundreds of entertainers perform non-stop throughout the day, and acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, minstrels, fire eaters, puppeteers, and even exotic tigers perform on eight stages throughout the Faire.

Tickets can be purchased online ($2 service fee/ticket) or at the gate the day you attend (cash only). Adults $27; Children (4-11) $15, (under 4) free

Cinderella - Puppet Showplace Theatre, Brookline
Saturday-Sunday

Set in the eighteenth century and featuring a dozen lavishly costumed 30” marionettes, Tanglewood Marionettes' production of Cinderella unfolds as the pages of a giant book open to reveal each beautifully painted setting. Each marionette is manipulated with precision and grace by our talented puppeteers. $12

The Circus of the Possibilitarians - Cambridge Common
Sunday

The Circus of the Possibilitarians is a satirical horse and butterfly circus, addressing pertinent national and international issues in a clownish fashion, features rotten ideas, a wild dancing horse, a saxophone ballet, a solemn salute to the world's casualties and much more.

Parents, please take note that if some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, accompanying children can usually explain them. The audience can examine all the masks and puppets after the performance. FREE

Masters of Flight: Birds of Prey - Stone Zoo, Stoneham
Through Monday

Labor Day Weekend is the last chance to see Masters of Flight: Birds of Prey, a demonstration featuring 16 different bird species from around the world, from the Egyptian vulture to the American kestrel. If you plan to see the 11:00AM show on Saturday, September 1, you can take advantage of Kids’ Price Saturday - from 10am-12n, all visitors are charged the children’s admission price ($9).

Zoorassic Park Exhibit - Franklin Park Zoo, Boston
Through Monday

And it’s also the last weekend to visit the Zoorassic Park Exhibit at the Franklin Park Zoo. Zoo visitors are immersed in a prehistoric journey through time at Franklin Park Zoo’s Zoorassic Park, as they journey around a large pond with more than 15 moving, roaring, life-like animatronic dinosaurs, including the imposing Tyrannosaurus rex. Kids can also pretend they are paleontologists at the nearby Dino Dig where they can “dig” for recreations of fossils and bones. Admission + $3

Sunday Parkland Games - Cambridge
Sundays through September

The summer-long series takes place each Sunday and includes fun and healthy activities like badminton, bocce, croquet, Frisbee, horseshoes, hula hoops, lawn toss, and paddleball, along with team activities such as potato sack races and tug-o-war. Free yoga classes, too. FREE