Can't keep up with all your reading? Here's the top news stories and fun links from last week:

If you haven't watched Barak Obama's Speech on Race, you must do so now. Right now.

Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines. Where do you stand???”NY Times

We've got a long weekend and I'm in the mood to get crafty. Preparing for holidays is always a fun time in our house when we can slow down and do some craft activities together. My kids love this and the crafts don't have to be complicated.

Making Easter Eggs is a great craft to do with kids because it can be tailored to be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be for different ages, abilities and crafty proclivities ??” meaning I can really get into it with my own creations.

Below I've rounded up a bunch of links to great Easter egg craft ideas, but this first link is to a delicious looking recipe for some Purim Hamantaschen. If you don't know about the Jewish holiday Purim, you can read about it on the 92nd St. Y site which tells the story. Purim is one of the few Jewish holidays that's really a kids' holiday.

Easter Egg Making Tips and Craft Ideas:

Thank you to everyone who entered into our Kangaroodle $100 gift certificate giveaway. Kangaroodle is offering a 15% discount for all Mommy Poppins readers on all purchases made now through May 31, 2008. And check out their new website which is even more fun and easy to navigate! Find out the code and our winner after the jump.

Free demo classes are like the gallery openings of childhood, but instead of free wine and cheese and pretentious art talk, you get a taste of some of the best classes available for kids. Here are some classes for babies, toddlers and kids that have free demo classes coming up, plus a super cool try-out opportunity for girls who just want to rock!

T. Kang Tae Kwon Do in Tribeca offers terrific martial arts classes for children as young as 2 years old and up through adult. Visit their open house on Sunday, April 6th at 12pm for a Tae Kwon Do demo by Junior and Adult students and stick around for free trial classes afterward. Register at the open house for a 10% discount. For questions, please call (212) 219-0043 or email tkangtkd@gmail.com.

Apple Seeds, the Chelsea play space is offering a full range of free demo classes like, "almost yoga" for 2.5/3 year olds, crafts, fitness, Spanish, "my Chelsea art opening", cooking and more. Classes are offered for babies up through 5 years old. VIsit the website to see the full offerings and then call to sign up for a free class.

Music for Aardvarks has arrived in a new location in Tribeca and to celebrate they're offering free $15 demo classes throughout the rest of March. You have to reserve a spot online. There are still spaces for March 19, 20, 26 and 27 for these city-centric kid music classes. In addition to the free $15 classes participants will get a free Taxi CD and $50 off Spring registration. [Sorry for the misprint. The classes are not free, but you do get a free CDS]

Not to be outdone, during the first week of April, Music Together is offering free trial classes for new students in several locations around Manhattan including, Murray Hill, Gramercy, Chelsea, SoHo, Tribeca, Battery Park City, and the West Village. Check out their website for dates and locations and to sign up.

In the "not free, but totally worth it" category is the Willie May Rock Camp for Girls MiniCamp this Saturday, March 22nd from 1-7pm at Union Pool in Brooklyn. They'll be giving guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and singing lessons to help uncover the rock star that lurks inside your little princess. Performances by hot girl rock bands Mod Rocket, Magnolia and Care Bears on Fire may inspire an irreversible trend toward uber-coolness. Open to all ages, but recommended for 5 and up. Register online. Performances by hot girl rock bands Mod Rocket, Magnolia and Care Bears on Fire may inspire an irreversible trend toward uber-coolness. Open to all ages, but recommended for 5 and up. Register online.

Sorry the email feed got a little screwy. It decided not to send out anything early last week and has been spitting out last week's posts at us all weekend in random order. Hopefully the computers will get their act together otherwise there'll no desert for them!

Because Thursday's Kangaroodle Giveaway post didn't go out to email readers until Saturday, I'm going to extend the deadline until tonight, Monday March 17th at 8pm. If you'd like to enter for the $100 giveaway leave a comment on that post.

The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus is heading this way and that means the annual elephant march is too. On Tuesday, March 18th at around nidnight the elephants will march through the mid-town tunnel and across 34th Street to Madison Square Garden. Yes it's late, yes it's a school night, but this is one of our 100 things to do with your kids in NY before they grow up, so if not this year definitely put it on your to do list.

Links to the best of everything kid and parenting related in the NYC media for the last week.

Bad Baby Names
Will having an unusual name make your baby do poorly in school, be unpopular or even possibly become a criminal or a delinquent? A new book Bad Baby Names investigates??”NY Times

Coney Island Amusements Now Open
The Brooklyn Paper reports that Coney Island amusement parks opened this weekend, almost a month early. It's possible this will be the last year of Coney Island as we know it, so take advantage of the early opening to get in some extra trips out there.

We all love a good kiddie show. Sure. But every once in a while it's great to go to a real grown up museum and see real art and remember what it feels like to have a full working brain, and speak a sentence that has more than three words and isn't about scrambled eggs.

Through some confluence of the gods there happens to be quite a few art exhibits running right now (real art exhibits in real museums) that not only can you get away with bringing your kids to, but they might actually really enjoy. Art exhibits where children will experience them on a kid level and you can enjoy them on another level with that part of your brain you'd forgotten you had.

Below is a summary of 5 different art exhibits worth checking out??”for yourself and with your kids: