Home economics classes are just about gone from NYC middle and high schools, in fact, Mark Twain in Coney Island is one of the only middle schools in the city to offer cooking - so rare, it was featured on The Rachel Ray show.  These days teens who want to learn to cook are learning at home. Even if you have mad cullinary skills, it's not always easy to find the time to make dinner, much less teach along the way. Teen cooking classes are a fun, cool and social way for your teen to learn the important skill of creating meals, and also (sniff!) gain some of that independence they crave.

The exhibit 1001 Inventions at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, is a fascinating journey. It explores the far-reaching contributions that Muslim civilization made during the Middle Ages in a broad variety of scientific and technological fields. Many of these 1,000-year-old inventions continue to shape our modern life, yet their origins are often overlooked or forgotten.  Medicine, astronomy, math, architecture, engineering, even gardening are all legacies of the Muslim world. This exhibit is particularly meaningful for a generation of young people whose preconceptions of Muslim culture may be dominated by images of unrest, violence and war.  After visiting 1001 Inventions, you and the kids may gain a deeper appreciation for this civilization’s achievements.

In 2008, I read about Gustafer Yellowgold on this very site and was instantly intrigued; I kept it on my short list and waited for the show to come back to town.  Last year my son and I were lucky enough to finally catch the awesome live show (for free no less) in a NYC public library and we were both carried away into the musical animated fantasyland created by the singer/songwriter/artist Morgan Taylor.  Gustafer Yellowgold is back with a brand new show, Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock that is enchanting NYC for the next few weeks before heading out on a national tour.  

If you have seen Gustafer before make sure to catch up on his exciting new adventures, and if you haven’t read on to find out what you have been missing!

During the entire month of March, the New Jersey Theater Alliance offers The Stages Festival, an opportunity for young people to enjoy free theater performances, classes and workshops. That also happens to include Family Week at the Theater, which launches this week with FREE (or deeply discounted) fun events for kids. The website has a great search engine so you can find performances based upon your county and the ages of your kids. Here are some of our favorite picks:

You may have known that we had pages for New Jersey and Long Island already. In fact, we even do weekend round ups of activities for those areas, but the sites were not as complete as the New York City site. Well, we're working to correct that and, at the same time, we've added Connecticut to the fold. Now there are 4 Mommy Poppins sites, each with its own event calendar, newsletter and all the features you love about the NYC site.

Some of the sites are a work in progress, but we will be working hard to keep the event calendars full and start adding guides for classes, camps and parties, like we have on the NYC site. Shari is our New Jersey Editor and Marybeth is our Connecticut Editor. Feel free to shoot them tips and comments. We are still looking for a Long island editor if you know of anyone, have them email me.

In order to accommodate the new sites we did a mild redesign. Let me introduce you to our new features:

Look at us! Our own site now, instead of just a page! Fancy, huh? As editor of the “Jersey” version of the popular NYC Mommy P, I wanted to show you around the site a bit. Virtually, of course. Not that I wouldn’t like to come over for cawfee and a donut, but then who would be trying all the activities that the Garden State has to offer and giving you the scoop?

I don’t know where that famous lion from the old weather fable is but the lamb is certainly here, just in time for the weekend, too.  As it is the first of the month there are some awesome free “first” weekend events at many of the cities museums.  One of them is The Brooklyn Museum and families may want to make a beeline to the new Tipi exhibit where they will be offering some pretty cool family programming for free.  The awesome and uber creative Material Lab at MOMA has weekend hours and there are also just a few seats left to the final Broadway Playhouse series of the season this Saturday, where they will be showing off the best of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt.  In addition, this weekend is the annual Armory Show, and they haven’t left out the kids, find out more below the fold.

Maple sugaring is the perfect way to celebrate the season and you don’t have to drive to Vermont to do it, not too far out of town you can visit the Nature Place Day Camp and The Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, both will be tapping their trees this weekend.  You could also be a pinball wizard and take a fun family day trip to the Silverball Museum Arcade in Asbury Park.  

Read on for our best bets for the weekend and be sure to check out the Mommy Poppins Events Calendar for more great weekend events.  Have a great weekend.  

Spring is officially on its way, I know this, because there are sap buckets on the trees. Sap buckets! The true sign that warm days are headed our way. Until then we've got some great events for you here that celebrate the snow, like ice skating and nature night hikes as well as indoor fun, like circus and dance performances. And of course, the sweet stuff, maple sugaring fun. Have a great weekend.