While NYC offers tons of outdoor summer activities, sometimes you want your fun to come with a little air conditioning. Happily there are a slew of new museum exhibits this season that are perfect for families, so you can soak up some cool culture while literally staying cool.

We've got the scoop on ten awesome summer installations, many of which are interactive. Find out where your kids can get up close and personal with live frogs, stand in an indoor rainstorm without getting wet, collaborate with professional artists and more this summer.

From local to national, there are many programs that provide guidance, inspiration, incentives and rewards for your kids to keep reading all summer long. The “Dig Into Reading” summer reading program at Massachusetts libraries is a great place to start. If you’re looking for more ways to encourage your child to continue reading this summer and some fabulous freebies, read on for reading programs in Boston and beyond. Check back soon for our updated roundup of free summer storytimes in and around the city. 

Why, yes, it is my birthday this weekend.  Why, yes, I would like to go out to a nice (grown up) dinner with my husband.  And why yes, it is prom weekend in my town, so all my lovely young sitters are bejeweled, bedazzled and headed out for a night on the town.   But some very thoughtful and business-minded childcare places had this very scenario in mind when they began offering Parents Nights Out, or, as I like to call them, Mom’s Night of Sanity.  Some local areas that offer this service include the following:

After this past winter, I'm so ready for summer. There's nothing quite like the first heat wave in Connecticut to make you start thinking of where you can cool off!  Now that my kiddos are a bit older, I'm excited about long days and evenings spent at the beach once summer finally arrives. Here in Southeastern Connecticut, I've rounded up some lush spots to lounge by Long Island Sound.

Thanks for all your love for the Mommy Poppins NJ website these past two years--we're always so happy to point you to where you can do cool things with your kids! And we have great news--besides having access to everything family-friendly on the website when you’re at your computer, soon you can have an app for your phone when you’re on the go! We’re working on developing an app for NYC to launch in June, and with your help, we could have New Jersey content following almost immediately. Read on to find out answers to your questions about the app, how you can help make it happen, and the super-fun incentives you can get for helping.

Are you ready for June? I know our kids are. Every morning, my second grader excitedly crosses off another day on the calendar as we count down to summer. If you're still trying to figure out what to do with the kids over school break, we just put up a list of high-quality summer camps that still have availability for all ages and interests. If you've got camp covered, then start poking around our Summer Fun Guide. We're still in the process of going over all of our popular seasonal posts from years past, but a lot of the big ones have already been updated like NYC beaches, water playgrounds, free outdoor sports programs for kids, June fairs and festivals and carousels—we even have info on the just reopened B&B Carousell in Coney Island.

Speaking of June, we just posted a brand-new Go NYC List, which highlights the best things to do with kids throughout the month. Many of our FREE annual favorites take place in June, like the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and the Figment arts fest on Governors Island. My family already has both of those marked in our calendar. If you're expecting or have a newborn, you'll want to put this Sunday's Brooklyn Baby Expo in your calendar, too. Hosted by A Child Grows in Brooklyn, the event features seminars, top baby gear, fun for the kids and more. And you can save 15% on tickets by using the discount code MP-BBE2013.

Our New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut sites are also all about summer fun. It's worth checking them out for great day trip and vacation ideas, like western heritage theme park Wild West City in Sussex County and Chatham on Cape Code. Our NYC Family Day Trips and Weekend Getaways Guide and Travel site also have detailed info on hundreds of destinations near and far, including what makes each one special for kids and families.

And if you're feeling lucky, it's almost your last chance to enter to win a children’s birthday party package at the brand-new Fantasy Forest at the Flushing Meadows Carousel—a $500 value. Enter on our Giveaways page. We're also excited to report that our Mommy Poppins App IndieGoGo campaign is at 26%. Help us get to 50% by next week and earn cool rewards for your support.

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

This weekend, head on over to the Rocket Competition at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, where you'll build your very own rocket, complete with streamers, wings, and fins, and then launch it off the museum's launch pad.  The Antique & Collectible Auto Show is taking place at Old Westbury Gardens in Old Westbury. I took my son to this event last year, and he was in complete awe of the rows and rows of cars! You also get to interact with the owners of the vehicles and can ask them questions. At the Sands Point Preserve in Sands Point, enjoy a double-feature event: Birds of Prey & Geocaching. First, you'll learn about birds and why they are important to Long Island ecology. Then grab your GPS or smartphone with a geocaching app and go on a spring scavenger hunt through the preserve. The Harbor Fest Dock Day & Craft Festival is taking place at the Town Dock in Port Washington, where you'll enjoy a craft fair, cruises, live music, an organic farmers market, and more. Also on tap: Li Liu-Chinese Acrobat at Longwood Public Library in Middle Island, and the Sheep Shearing Festival at the Sherwood-Jayne House in Setauket. As always, check out our events calendar every day for fun activities for the family!  Long Island is home to many beautiful parks so please be sure to check out our articles on Suffolk County Parks and Nassau County Parks.

June is busting out all over, all over the Valleys and the Hills!*  With Memorial Day come and gone, we are now officially in the summer season, which means an abundance of grade A, E-ticket  activities. We can get you started on filling in your datebook with our June Go List of must-do events. (Spoiler: there's a lot of fun stuff).

If the impending summer break fills you with more dread than anticipation, no worries: we've got you covered with our comprehensive camp guide. We can point you to traditional day camps, but that's just the beginning. LA is a camper's paradise, with science camps, sewing camps,  cooking camps, horse riding camps, art camps and, of course, acting camps and surf camps. To name a few.

Love Mommy Poppins so much you wish you could bring us with you wherever you go? We can make that happen, with your help. Mommy Poppins is launching a mobile app, that can do things like point you towards activities near your current location or help you find free events. That's the good news. The less good news is that it's only starting for the New York site right now, but the hey-it's-still-good news is that one other site will be chosen to launch its app soon after that. The and-this-is-where-you-can-help news is that we need LA Mommy Poppins readers to leave comments on the indiegogo page requesting that LA be the number 2 app to launch. Easy peasy.  You can also contribute a few sheckels to the cause there, but only if you want to.

Keep reading for some of our favorite picks for the weekend (which you would totally already know if you had the Mommy Poppins LA app, just sayin' )....