Memorial Day Weekend Kicks off the Summer Season with Pools. Beaches, Sprinklers, Weekend Travel and Fish

5/28/10 - By Anna Fader

Photo of the Week: This guy was waiting for the bus with us on Randall's Island last weekend and was dyin to show us the colassal striped bass he caught out of the East River. Believe me, it wasn't the worst smelling thing on the bus that day.

Woohoo, long Weekend! Memorial Day Weekend unofficially kicks off the summer season, meaning the beaches, sprinklers and swimming pools are all opening starting this weekend. Also opening this weekend is the new Luna Park amusement park at Coney Island.

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Memorial Day Weekend also signals the beginning of the weekly weekend diaspora and to help you plan yours (and your summer vacations) we've created a new Family Travel Guide with lots of day trips, weekend getaways and family vacation ideas. And we'll be adding many more destinations in the coming weeks.

If you're looking for an easy last minute getaway for the holiday weekend you might want to try Mystic, Ct for lots of family friendly fun or Quiet Valley Farm in Pennsylvania which is having their annual Animal Frolic this weekend. For the more adventurous folks, we have some suggestions ofCampgrounds in the Catskills and tips on how to go camping with wee ones.

This week we also posted a great list of free summer sports programsincluding where to get free swimming lessons and many other fun activiites. Plus, we dug up lots of fun things to do at the South Street Seaport that you might not know about as part of our Hidden NY series. And shared the inside skinny on the New York Transit Museum's Vintage Nostalgia Train Rides program this summer where you can ride real antique trains and buses. Pretty cool.

Personally for me this week was about middle school admissions as 5th grade kids across NYC, including mine, found out where they did or didn't get in for 6th grade next year. I'm looking forward to sharing some pearls of wisdom from our middle school admissions process. In he meantime you can read about how I used the various DOE reports to help evaluate our school choices.

In contract, Allison wrote a great article about how she plans on homeschooling for preschool and tips on how to create a preschool coop.