This Week: Free Fall Festivals, Best Things to Do with Kids in September, Apple Picking Near NYC, Back-to-School Giveaway

9/5/13 - By Raven Snook

What have you been doing to keep the kids busy these final days of summer break? We here at Mommy Poppins are furiously crossing off items on our summer bucket lists. Yesterday, a few of us got together and spent the day on City Island in the Bronx. Today, we're off to the recently reopened Rockaway Park in Queens. Where do we go for destination inspiration? Mommy Poppins' in-depth NYC Kids Neighborhood Guides. For the past two years, we've been highlighting one neighborhood a month in a series of in-depth posts, and now we've put all of those hyper-local guides together on one jam-packed page. Even if you've lived in NYC all your life, you'll undoubtedly find cool new-to-you things to explore with your family. I sure have!

September has arrived, which means all of our sites have published brand-new Go Lists highlighting the absolute best things to do with kids throughout the month. It's a particularly awesome month for family events in NYC, with lots of our free fall favorites like Fort Tryon Park's Medieval Festival and the Dumbo Arts Festival. But you'll find plenty of great picks in nearby Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, too, including things you can only do outside the city like apple picking and farm harvest festivals.

The back-to-school season is in full swing and so is our massive back-to-school giveaway. We have already awarded a few of our fabulous prizes but we've got a bunch to go including a $250 gift certificate for Sears Optical, a Disney Junior package, Schwinn bikes and KRE-O CityVille Invasion building sets by Hasbro. All of the giveaways will be over soon so enter now.

Here's what else we covered this week on the NYC site:

OUR LATEST VIDEOS

Our neighborhood focus of the month is the East Village and we kicked off our coverage with a list of the top 40 things to do in the area with kids.

We're always encouraging people to shop local and Astoria, Queens families have a great new homegrown shop to try: Lockwood featuring adorable kids' clothes and toys, baby gear and family classes.

Apple picking season has arrived and we've got roundups of orchards all over the tri-state area, including a post about pick-your-own farms less than an hour's drive from midtown Manhattan.

Our biweekly links post has details on how to snag tickets for Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play in Prospect Park, a $20 Off-Broadway ticket deal and a cool Luna Park promotion where good grades earn you FREE rides.

September is overflowing with awesome and mostly FREE festivals and fairs—we found 23 fall fetes worth putting on your calendar.

Still searching for cool extracurricular classes for your kids? Try out one, two or ten programs at no cost with our roundup of FREE demo and trial classes.

Best bets for the weekend include lots of FREE fun like the West Side County Fair in Riverside Park South, Arthur Avenue’s Ferragosto in the Bronx and the NYC Honey Fest on Rockaway Beach.