The great thing about New York City's outdoor festivals is that everyone can enjoy them. If it's kids music, at least the grown ups can enjoy being outdoors on a lovely day or evening, relaxing. And, generally kids will put up with an outdoor concert or performance if they can run around, dance, play and picnic while you enjoy a little grown up entertainment for once.

The following free outdoor festivals are not specifically children's festivals, but they, for the most part, each have at least one kids performance and otherwise offer great performances in great outdoor environments around NYC, making a fun day or evening out with the kids either way.

Celebrate Brooklyn is considered by many to be NYC's best summer festival. Located at the Prospect Park bandshell, Celebrate Brooklyn is a great venue with a diverse range of excellent performances. You'll find music, dance, films and more. We already wrote about the child friendly outdoor movies that are part of Celebrate Brooklyn. Another great kid event at Celebrate Brooklyn will be the Dan Zanes concert on July 22; sure to be packed with toddlers, children and adults alike rocking out to the king of kid rock.

Lower Manhattan's River to River Festival has hundreds of events including dozens of children's and family events. As part of the River to River Festival you'll find children's workshops, story times, fairs, singing and dancing and more. Check out the calendar for the full list of children's events.

Everyone is familiar with Central Park's Summer Stage. Many of the Summer Stage events will be enjoyed by children, but for sure kids will love the Summer Stage Global Family Day on July 15th. Led up by Hip Hop Harry, a Kangol cap bearing big yellow bear described as Barney "if he had lived in the South Bronx in the '80s." Hmmm. Well, there will also be a marionette show of Cinderella Samba, a performance by hip kid rockers, The Sippy Cups, a performance outlining the history of break dancing, and finally, some good 'ol Brooklyn barbecue from The Smoke Joint.

The NY Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks Festival travels to all five boroughs plus Long Island and New Jersey, making classical music from the oldest philharmonic in the United States available to all for free. While there are no children performances, classical music under the stars, followed by fireworks is sure to be enjoyed by the entire family. Or it's a least a good way to sneak a little classical music into your children's repertoire.

The last festival we were planning on featuring was the NYC Fringe Festival which has a series of FringeJR events designed for families. Unfortunately, they have not published their calendar yet and haven't yet replied to our inquiries. We'll keep you posted or you can check the Fringe NYC site.

One of the themes of this site is the wonderful riches of NYC for kids. We're not talking about investment bankers or bugaboo strollers. We're talking about the wealth of cultural institutions, the hidden gems, and the overall abundance of amazing opportunities for children in New York. Especially when these things can all be had for free.

Lincoln Center's summer programming is a perfect example of the richness of New York City's offering for children. Through Lincoln Center's many festivals and outdoor programming, children can experience an incredible range of high quality performances, all for free, from the world's leading performing arts center.

In addition to the free concerts and performances for kids in Madison Square Park, there is free programming at several other parks around Manhattan this summer. Union Square Park, Bryant Park and Washington Market Park all have free music and more to enjoy with the kids.

The Whitney Museum of American Art kind of slips your mind. "Oh, yeah that museum with the biennial." But, this summer The Whitney is going to be rocking for kids as they celebrate the 40th Anniversary of The Summer of Love. Check out the free WhitneyKids Rock Festival this weekend at the museum New York loves to forget.

If you haven't been to Madison Square Park with your kids, then you should go right away. But if you need a reason to get you there, then this is definitely it: Every Tuesday and Thursday mornings through the summer they have free shows for kids.

This week it's all free summer fun in the form of kids concerts and festivals. More activities to fill those long hot NYC summer days with free entertainment for kids. We'll have the best of where you can find weekly kid music performances, best kid picks from the summer festivals, and more. The free summer fun for kids just never ends in NYC and you'll find it all here. Have a tip? Click on the Contribute link in the sidebar.

We love finding clever ways to reuse and recycle things, especially to create a fun, environmentally friendly kids craft project. That's why we just had to link to this Parent Hack. Asha came up with the idea of re-using the Styrofoam from the packing materials around new electronics as building blocks to make a toy castle. A couple of toothpick and post-its note flags and your little prince and princesses have a world of make-believe play before them. Just add some playmobile or lego knights or finger puppets.

Kids love acting. Maybe that's why TADA! is such a popular program with NYC kids. During the school year they have great after school programs and in the summer they have day camps for NYC kids and teenagers. TADA! day camps let NYC kids take advantage of the talented professional theater artists of New York to learn straight from the pros the ins and outs of acting and theater in a fun summer camp setting.

Each summer day camp session is one week long and kids create and perform a different mini-musical every week. Children campers work with professional theater artists, learn songs from original TADA! musicals and Broadway shows, and invent the scenes between the songs themselves. The camp week ends with a performance by campers for friends and family. Each day camp session features a different theme such as “Slumber Party,� “Crime-Solving Kids,� “Grab Some Magic� “Spooky Stories,� “Destination Broadway� and “Sounds of the City.�