50 Snow Day Boredom Busters for Kids: Fun Indoor Activities

What kid doesn't love a game of pretend?

When the weatherman predicts a snow day, you can almost hear the collective cries of joy from children—and the sighs of resignation from the adults who will miss work to entertain a house of stir-crazy kids. Before your brood drives you batty, scan through this list of 50 indoor activities just right for a snow day, from baking projects (hot chocolate on a stick) to cool crafts (toy parachutes) and fun games for kids (indoor snowball fight). Have fun—and good luck!

Find more crafts, recipes, at-home projects, and science experiments in our Boredom Busters Activities Guide, or venture outdoors with these snow games and activities.

Visiting the Long Island Children's Museum with Kids

A collaborative effort takes place in LICM's TotSpot. Photo courtesy of the museum

Visiting the Long Island Children's Museum in Garden City is a must-do activity for Long Island kids. The museum is home to more than 10 regular exhibits and also has rotating, seasonal shows throughout the year. 

The museum's facilities range from a play space geared toward toddlers to climbing structures for older kids. The institution also hosts regular classes and is a popular spot for birthday parties. Read on for a rundown of all its features. 

Find out more about Long Island's many cultural institutions in our Museums and Art Guide for Long Island Kids

Best Off-Broadway Shows for Kids: Affordable Children's Theater in NYC

The off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors is perfectly set in a small theater, with big performances from its cast. Photo by Emilio Madrid-Kuser

Taking kids to a Broadway show is an exciting and memorable experience. It's also a pricey one. That's why it's worth looking beyond Broadway, where you'll find some long-running, kid-friendly shows that are less expensive, more offbeat, but just as special.

From a bubble-filled, surefire toddler hit to a hilarious slapstick comedy to those world-famous blue dudes, there are options for all ages and interests. We've even shared ways you can snag deeply discounted tickets. All of these Off-Broadway productions make great birthday party activities, too.

Visiting Color Factory NYC: Inside Soho's Interactive Art Museum

With 500,000 balls to play with, Color Factory's ball pit provides endless play and fun.

When's the last time you dove into a ball pit filled with half a million sky-blue colored balls or sniffed your way through a color-blocked hallway punctuated by an olfactory overload while noshing on a colorful macaron? If the answer leaves you puzzled, perhaps it's time to trek to Color Factory, Soho's interactive art experience that invites exploration and play.

A one-time pop-up, Color Factory is here to stay and constantly reinventing its 20,000-square-foot space to keep the experience fresh. Following our confetti-filled visit to its Winter Colorland installation, we thought it was time to remind visitors of all the fun inside, which includes infinitely Instagrammable moments, fun lite bites, and tons of colorful displays to explore. It's a perfect spot to brighten up a cold winter's day and has earned its place in our Guide to Indoor Play Spaces and Fun Zones in NYC.

20 Family-Friendly Openings We're Looking Forward to in 2023

Disney turns 100 and there will be celebrations from coast to coast. Photo courtesy of Disneyland

New year, new things to do! As we usher in 2023, we’re looking forward to all the family-friendly openings on the horizon. From cool family travel destinations and brand new theme parks worth planning your vacation around to more local haunts closer to Mommy Poppins' home bases, we’ve checked in with our panel of local experts and put our powers of research to work to bring you this list of family-friendly openings we’re most excited for in 2023. Here's a taste: Disney, Barbie, Mario, Bert & Ernie—and if that sounds too tame for your teens, there's also a  rollercoaster that features the world's largest underflip, a zero-G roll, and four inversions. My stomach underflipped just typing that.

Read on for our top picks and start plotting your family-friendly outings. I know we are! And as you're mapping out visits from coast to coast, be sure to use our Family Travel Guide which boasts the inside scoop on traveling with kids from Florida to California and all points in between.

Best Travel of 2022: Our Favorite Cities, Beaches, Hotels, and More for a Family Vacation

Have fun in the sun at Ocean Club Resort Turks & Caicos.

Here at Mommy Poppins we love to visit new places, and what a year of travel it was! In 2022 we explored some amazing US cities, frolicked on beaches from Texas to the Caribbean, and even visited fabulous destinations in Europe including Amsterdam and Paris. Along the way we got to enjoy some thrilling amusement parks, stayed at some great resorts with water parks, and took some epic road trips.

Here is our list of the best family vacation destinations of 2022, from warm and sunny vacation spots in the US and abroad to wintry adventures in Colorado.

January's Best: Rose Parade, Honoring MLK, and More Top Things To Do in Los Angeles with Kids

Traditional mochi pounding is part of the 2023 Oshogatsu Family Festival. Photo courtesy of Japanese City, Facebook

January brings plenty of things to do in Los Angeles which kicks off with New Year's Day and moves on to kids going back to school and then Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend! Don’t miss our favorite kid-friendly events and activities in Los Angeles this month.

2023 starts with that Southern California classic, the Rose Parade, and things only get better from there. Bluey comes to town in January, to the delight of toddlers across LA. It's also the month that we celebrate Epiphany on Olvera Street and one of my personal favorite fests of the year: the Snow Leopard Festival at the Santa Barbara Zoo. It's time to hop into Year of the Rabbit at Lunar New Year celebrations from Santa Ana to Monterey Park. And the whole town comes out to honor the man who was a King at the massive Kingdom Day Parade in Leimert Park.

January also means it's winter. While we didn't get walloped this Christmas like most of the country, you can take advantage of the recent rain and go sledding and snow tubing near Los Angeles or take one of these amazing winter day trips where you can see snow in SoCal.

Best of January: 18 Top Things To Do In Chicago With Kids

Photo courtesy of the Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival

2022 brought the coldest Chistmas in recent memory, but that means kids can look forward to a variety of frozen winter things to do in Chicago in January 2023 as days get longer. Start off with one of the handful of light shows still hanging around after the holidays, like Illumination at the Morton Arboretum (it's been extended to January 7), or Winter Lights at Central Park in Oak Brook. Move on to some cold weather nature activities, including Polar Adventure Days on Northerly Island or Snow Trekking in the nature sancturary at Burnham Park. Puppets are also taking over Chicago at the Chopin Theater's Icicle Picnic and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival

The end of winter break and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day provide long weekend opportunities for families to take one of our favorite winter day trips from Chicago. We also have lists for the best places to skate, snow tube, and sled. Check out our Winter Fun Guide for even more ideas of what to do if it gets cold or snowy,

Here are our best ideas for things to do in January in Chicago with kids.

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