This weekend brings the first hint of fall, and our weekend roundup includes a mix of outdoor activities, from RiverSing in Cambridge to Arlington’s town festival to the Trails & Sails on the North Shore, and indoor events, like a Pirate Day story time at the Harvard Coop and a comedic interpretation of the classic Hound of the Baskervilles. And it’s still a great time to plan an apple picking adventure or a trip to a museum to see one of the new fall exhibits.

Alastair Moock and The Rowdy Roots Band Ticket Giveaway Reminder: Boston indie acoustic performer Alastair Moock celebrates the release of his second family music CD, These Are My Friends, with his concert at The Center for the Arts in Natick on Saturday, September 24. Mommy Poppins Boston is offering one lucky family a Family 4 Pack of tickets to the show! Email me for a chance to win.

Long Island is pulling out all the stops to provide family fun for fall, from barnyard dances, to autumn adventures. In addition to the awesome events below, there are many fall festivals and fall fairs taking place on Long Island this weekend, it's a great time to visit a pick your own apple picking farm, and if you are feeling adventurous, take a trip to Queens and check out the Maker Faire, which always garners rave reviews. Have a great weekend.

On a separate note, our New Jersey Editor has recently participated in a valuable roundtable discussion for a CBS News/48 Hours special "Bullying: Words Can KIll". The program covers the impact of bullying and explores current methods for addressing this problem. The special is scheduled to air on Friday, September 16 at 8pm EST.

Not ready for summer to be over? Given the temperatures this week it looks like Mother Nature has been feeling the same way. But luckily we live in Southern California, where we can enjoy a wealth of outdoor activities regardless of the date on the calendar!

LA has a particularly international flavor this weekend. Festivals celebrate the cultures of Thailand, Scandinavia, Greece, and Latin America. There are storytimes in Spanish and American Sign Language, (and one with Peter Rabbit himself). The Hollywood Bowl offers another fireworks spectacular, this time set to music with a French theme.  

Keep reading for some of our top choices this weekend:

We hope you're ready to make some tough decisions: This weekend is jam-packed with fantastic and, in many cases, free things to do all over New York City. My head is seriously spinning!

Your choices include amazing annual favorites like the 29th Annual Queens County Fair, the funky Kite Flight fest atop the Port Authority Bus Terminal, The Little Red Lighthouse Festival in Washington Heights, the Brooklyn Book Festival and the awesome World Maker Faire in Queens.

And that's just a sampling of the great things going on this weekend. Read on for all of our picks and remember, you can find additional options in our Event Calendar and our Fall Fun Guide, where we've rounded up the season's top activities, including the best concerts, museum exhibits and theater shows for kids this season.

Boston indie acoustic performer Alastair Moock celebrates the release of his second family music CD, These Are My Friends, with his concert at The Center for the Arts in Natick on Saturday, September 24. Mommy Poppins Boston is offering its readers the chance to enter the drawing for a Family 4 Pack of tickets to the show!

To enter, send me an email and let me know you're interested in attending the show. One winner will be drawn at random and notified on Tuesday, September 20.  If winner doesn't respond to our email notification within 48 hours, another winner will be drawn. (Email addresses of entrants will not be collected, sold or otherwise abused.)

And subscribe to our weekly Boston newsletter to be sure you stay up-to-date with what's going on in and around Boston!

So far this week we’ve highlighted 16 cool concerts and 8 awesome museum exhibits that we’re excited to take our kids to this fall. Now we come to my personal favorite: theater.

Although a few of veteran children’s troupes, like TADA! Youth Theater and the Atlantic Company for Kids, won’t be debuting new productions until spring, there are still plenty of wonderful children’s shows hitting New York City stages this fall.

We’re skipping pricey Broadway musicals and familiar fairy tales in favor of more eclectic and inexpensive fare, like Eric Carle’s classic stories told through black-light puppetry, a multi-genre dance mash up and a lot of stage adaptations of beloved children’s books. Here are our top picks for children’s theater this autumn.

Adventure abounds in Boston museums and cultural institutions this fall. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite entertaining (and educational) exhibits that will have families reliving Shark Week, ditching the plastic bags, learning about life in the 1960s, wondering which of their peers will be the next Jackson Pollock, and even stumbling around in the dark.

I had the honor of being included in a preview and roundtable discussion of the CBS News/48 Hours special “Bullying: Words Can Kill” at CBS studios today. The special, to be broadcast Friday, September 16 at 8pm EST, bears its provocative title for a reason: the terrible statistic of more than 150 children in recent years having taken their own lives due to having been bullied. Despite this tragic number and the unsettling content of the show, the 48 Hours special is not gloom and doom—showcasing a Rhode Island middle school that has taken strong measures to address their bullying problem with a great deal of success.