Purim, St Patty's and more. We hope you're ready to roll, cause here's a lot going on! In addition to the always popular Family (free) Saturdays at the Manhattan JCC, this Sunday they are hosting their annual Purim Carnival. There's a ton of Purim fun going on this and next weekend, from Carnivals to space-themed events, and there are some St.Patrick's Day celebrations as well.

Since we are in mid-March, it is still Maple Sugaring season. If you are up for a day trip away from the city, many places are still tapping their trees this weekend! And if you are looking for a little culture, Gustafer Yellowgold is in town, and the New York Hall of Science has a fabulous new exhibit, 1001 Inventions. Feeling crafty? We've got the info on places for beading fun, and great cooking classes for your teen. And finally, as we strive to bring you the best of the best, Mommy Poppins has expanded and improved, bringing a redesign and cool features.

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.

St. Patricks Day is coming, and if you are in the spirit, we've got some fun ways to celebrate. Even if green isn't your favorite color, Saturday has the promise of sun so it might be fun to take in a parade or join a Pot o' Gold scavenger hunt. And if you aren't clamoring to shout Erin Go Braugh we've got some other great stuff for you too. A cool workshop that brings you back to Great Grandma's kitchen in the 1800s, a seal walk, and more are on offer this weekend. Enjoy the sunshine.

This weekend, feast on some pi. And no, I didn't forget the 'e'. Princeton is celebrating Einstein's birthday with a Pi party (and there actually will be 'pie' there) and pi-rates are cavorting on Pirate Adventure Day. And if you can stand any more alliteration, there's also a Proper Pets workshop at Turtle Back, a penguin spa at Jenkinson's Aquarium, and of course, more St. Patrick's fun. There's other good stuff too, but none of it starts with 'p', so you'll have to keep reading. Have fun!

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: