Maple Sugar Days - Brookwood Farm, Blue Hills Reservation, Milton
Sat 3/9
Admission $6

It's sugarin' time in the Blue Hills! Watch as maple syrup is made in the traditional way. Smell the wood smoke as you watch clouds of steam rise from the bubbling sap. Savor the taste of real maple syrup.

Brookwood Farm is located in the DCR Blue Hills reservation in Milton. Take exit 3 (Houghton's Pond) off Route 93 and follow signs to Maple Sugar days parking. Enjoy a free shuttle ride on the Maple Express Trolley. No registration required.

Sugaring Tours - Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, Topsfield
Sat-Sun 3/9-3/10 & 3/16-3/17
Cost: Adults $9; Children $8        

Visitors tour the sanctuary’s sugar bush and learn how to identify a sugar maple tree, observe tapping and sap collection methods, discover how sap becomes syrup in the sugarhouse, and get a sweet taste of the final product. Tours last about an hour and run rain or shine. Warm up after your tour by the wood stove in the barn, where homemade soup and baked goods, maple sugar candy, books and gift items, plus the sanctuary’s own maple syrup, are available for sale.

Advance registration is required. Tour times: 10am, 12:30pm, 2:30pm

Maple Syrup Boildown - Somerville Community Growing Center, Somerville
Sat 3/9
FREE

Visitors watch and learn as sap from local maple trees is boiled down into pure maple syrup over a warm fire. Enjoy syrup-tasting, kids’ activities, tapping demonstrations, live music by local band The Pennies, and more! Waffles, syrup, hot cocoa and T-shirts are on sale, plus a table for seed order pickup from the Growing Center’s Seed Sale fundraiser.

Stories Through Time - Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge
Sat 3/9
Free with admission

Families can take a time-travel trip as they consider how our human ancestors lived; play a 3,000-year-old game; and visualize changes in season and climate. Using specimens from the Museum collections and special hands-on activities, Stories Through Time invites kids to explore our past with faculty, students, and curators from Harvard’s science and culture museums.

Saturday Family Concert: Sun Goddess - Tufts University, Medford
Sat 3/9
FREE

In a concert just for kids and families, the Tufts Jazz Orchestra performs music by Gershwin, Bernstein, and Earth, Wind & Fire under the direction of Joel LaRue Smith. Pieces featured include Tonight from West Side Story and Juanito, an Afro-Cuban jazz treatment of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Tufts' only children's entertainment group, Traveling Treasure Trunk, opens the show.

Reflections of a Rock Lobster - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston
Opens Sat 3/9; Weekends through 3/17
Tickets: $25-$35        

Boston Children's Theatre is the first children's theater in the country to produce Reflections of a Rock Lobster, about a gay teenager and his fight to defend his life and preserve his civil rights in the wake of bullying, prejudice and intolerance.

The play is based on the true story of Aaron Fricke, a 17-year-old from Cumberland, Rhode Island who sued his high school in 1980 for the right to escort his boyfriend to his senior prom.

Note: contains mature subject matter and content. BCT recommends parental discretion (13 & up).

Stacey Peasley Band - Regent Theatre, Arlington
Sat 3/9
Tickets: Adults $10; Children $8        

Stacey Peasley combines her love of children and music into a lively act that engages kids and creates memorable and fun sing-along songs.

Badger Meets the Fairies - Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington
Sat 3/9
Tickets: $6        

Mr. Badger is thrilled to meet a fairy in his garden, and flies off to help the fairies build a playground. Join Margaret Moody of Galapagos Puppets for “Badger Meets the Fairies,” a spring story based on European fairy stories. The intricate hand puppets were built by Arlington artist Sandra Pastrana, and Margaret Moody. Alison Plante’s original music for the piece weaves in Celtic melodies.

Come for the show; stay for puppet-play and coffee afterward.

Blue Discoveries Family Day: Octopus - New England Aquarium, Boston
Sun 3/10
Free with admission

Learn more about the blue planet through art, science and storytelling. Programs highlight Aquarium favorites as well as Aquarium hidden treasures. Today's focus: Octopus.

While you're there, stop by the Family Photo Booth and take a moment to share why your family cares about the oceans and what they are doing to help protect our greatest natural resource.

Author Visit: Linda Marshall - The Passover Lamb - Brookline Booksmith, Brookline
Sun 3/10
FREE

Local author Linda Marshall (Talia and the Rude Vegetables) joins us with her latest book, The Passover Lamb, based on an actual experience at her farm. Will Miriam be able to rescue her baby lamb?

Photo courtesy of Appalachian Mountain Club