Prospect Heights

Even if your family's swimming in money like Uncle Scrooge (and if you are, congrats), we all appreciate a good bargain. Summer camp is an especially stressful financial issue because while we want our children to have a fun, rewarding and safe experience, we don't want to dig into our 401Ks to pay for it. One thing we've learned is that cost and quality don't always correlate. Some wonderful programs are subsidized by arts and education funding so that all children can experience the rich and amazing resources of this city.

Although there seem to be fewer completely free New York City summer camps than in years past, our list of excellent inexpensive camps keeps growing. One of those programs—the NYC Parks Experience Summer Day Camp, which costs $500 for the entire summer—holds its online lottery for spots this week! Read on to find out how to vie for a space and for info on many other free and bargain summer camps for NYC kids.

Earlier this week, we shared our favorite NYC spots where kids can run around (or skate or swim or bike) indoors when it's too cold to play outside. But sometimes the best way for the entire family to get their sillies out is to jump around at a live music show. My daughter and I love discovering bands and musicians together, and we're always on the lookout for new-to-us groups to add to our ever-growing list of favorites.

There are so many cool kids' concert series in New York City—Bring Your Own Kid at 92YTribeca, Just Kidding at Symphony Space, the Tot Music Fest at Littlefield, to name a few—that you could easily see three shows every week (as my daughter would like to do)! But to give your dancing shoes (and your wallet) a break, we've rounded up our top 11 family concerts this winter. In addition to picks at all of the major series, we're also highlighting two local kindie rock faves who are playing the BAMkids Film Festival as well as a couple of totally free shows. In fact, almost all of these concerts cost less than $15 per person.

Every fall we get emails from readers asking us to recommend school holiday camps for Election Day (Tuesday, November 6), Veterans Day (Monday, November 12) and all those other days when public schools are closed but many parents still need to work. (Columbus Day, Rosh Hashanah, Black Friday, we're looking at you.) While there are many wonderful mini-camps to choose from during the big school vacations like holiday, midwinter and spring breaks, it seems harder to find coverage on those one-off holidays that pop up throughout the academic year.

But we did the research and found that there actually are quality programs offering fun-filled one-day camps on many of these holidays, where kids can enjoy soccer, cooking, theater, robotics and chess. So don't take the day off from work: Send your kids to one of these cool-sounding holiday camps instead.