Easter is the main event this week and all of our sites have posts about cool community Easter egg hunts and festivals, from NYC to Long Island to New Jersey and beyond. We also updated our posts about New Jersey's awesome Easter Bunny train rides and where to take photos with the big rabbit in NYC, and our Boston site has tips on creating healthier Easter baskets.

This week also marks the start of Passover and spring break. If you're planning a NYC staycation, we have lots of ideas about what to do over spring break. And if you want to get out of town, you have plenty of time to take a day trip or even plan a longer getaway with the help of our new Mommy Poppins Travel Site.

Here's what else we shared this week on our NYC site:

(Image courtesy of Long Island Aquarium)

It's Easter Weekend, and celebrations abound around the Island. Take the kids on an egg hunt (find even more here)--or even a dinosaur-egg hunt--an Easter Parade or a Spring Festival. Happy Easter and Happy Passover!

Spring Break is about to begin for many Connecticut families and there are lots of Easter festivities around the state on Saturday. Looking for some inspiration? You can check out some fun Easter party and recipe ideas on our pinterest page. Saturday is your last chance to squeeze an Egg hunt in and Easter activities abound this weekend. You can find a celebration close to you in our Fairfield, Hartford and Litchfield posts. 

With two big holidays just around the corner, Boston is buzzing with bunnies, Easter egg hunts, and Passover preparations. There is still time for kids to see the Easter Bunny around town and take part in some really big Easter Egg hunts. Plus, we have some great ideas for ways to fill your Easter baskets and Easter eggs to celebrate at home.

If you’re still trying to figure out what to do with the kids during April Vacation Week in and around Boston, take a look at these terrific workshops, camps and programs. And be sure to check in on our calendar as we’re continually updating it with other special vacation events.

Here’s wishing everyone a great weekend. Read on for some of our suggestions of things to do. Enjoy!

“Listen my children and you shall hear…” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

April is National Poetry Month, a celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. Kids in the greater Boston area can celebrate with poetry contests, workshops, performances, a festival and an exploratory walk through the woods. Read on for a roundup of all things poetry.

April is National Poetry Month (bet you didn't know that). Even if the last time you picked up a collection of adult poems was Sylvia Plath in college, chances are you read your kids rhyming stanzas by the likes of Dr. Seuss, Margaret Wise Brown or Shel Silverstein on a more regular basis. Little ones really respond to poetry; the rhymes help them learn to read, and older kids get into rap and slam poetry.

There are lots of special kid-friendly events going on in honor of National Poetry Month, including free poetry writing workshops, poetry slams and the annual Poem in Your Pocket day. But we've also got ways your family can celebrate the art of poetry year-round in New York City.

As our kids are growing up and starting to develop their own interests, it has become increasingly difficult to find an activity our whole family will enjoy. Each person has their own idea of fun, which often doesn’t even register on the rest of the family’s fun-o-meter. Happily, we discovered that the Big Apple Circus is an exception. The whole family enjoyed two hours of pure entertainment – we laughed, we gasped, we sat wide-eyed and momentarily frozen in our seats, wondering if the performers were really going to be able to pull it off (they did, of course).

My now eight-year-old son had happy feet in utero, and happy (and apparently tasty) feet as a baby. As soon as he learned there was such a thing, he began asking for dance lessons. It seems he didn’t get the memo that, in America at least, dance is not considered a cool activity for boys. (Not that he would have cared—he’s very much a waltz to the beat of his own drummer kind of dude.)

In order to counter this attitude, lots of dance studios have launched special boy-centric or boys-only classes in the hope of appealing to all of the Billy Elliots out there. Bonus: Some of these programs are subsidized or even free!