Big news for tweens (and their parents!): IDNYC, the municipal identification card, which comes with a ton of family-friendly benefits, has lowered its minimum age for eligibility to 10 years old. This means middle schoolers are now eligible for the FREE ID.

When the IDNYC program was Initially launched in 2015, the minimum eligible age was 14. Read on for more details on the application process, and the reasons why you should book your tween's appointment now.

There’s no better way to usher in the harvest season than with a fall festival. With tons of events happening in the Houston area over the next few months, the opportunities for enjoying cooler temperatures (okay, that may be a bit ambitious for October) and good, old-fashioned family fun are endless. Here’s our roundup of fairs and festivals taking place this autumn. 

Storytimes are great FREE—or super low-cost—kid activities that can often provide the incentive families need to get out of the house on those rainy, cold, or snowy days when cabin fever is likely to set in. Hosted throughout NYC at libraries, bookstores, museums, and other fun places, most of these baby and kid reading sessions don't require reservations, making it easy to just drop in. Plus, many of these storytimes incorporate arts and crafts projects, so story hour can easily turn into a full morning or afternoon of fun.

Read on for our most up-to-date list of storytimes for fall and winter 2018 in Manhattan. Also, be sure to check our list of NYC's best independent bookstores for kids for more reading inspiration, and if you're in the boroughs, we've also written about storytimes in Brooklyn and in Queens.

Let the fall fun begin! This fall there are tons of events, festivals, and shows in NYC just right for the preschool crowd. From fall fairs with petting zoos to music performances to great toddler and preschooler activities, here are 30+ fall events for NYC preschoolers—and best of all, many events and activities are FREE.

Don't forget to check out our September GoList and Best NYC Fall Festivals for even more great fall events, not to mention our just released Fall Fun Guide. Looking for a special day trip? Preschoolers are old enough to pick their own apples this September or even find the perfect pumpkin.

Usher in the fall season in Westchester and the Hudson Valley with a host of family autumn festivals. The area's harvest celebrations are packed with seasonal activities for kids, including pumpkin fun, hayrides, apple-cidering, doughnuts, and more.

We've rounded up details on the best upcoming fall festivals in Westchester, several of which made our September GoList. And be sure to consult our guide to the best places for apple picking, many of which include festival-like added attractions.

Looking for more fall family fun? Get the most out of the season by subscribing to our newsletters and following us on Facebook. 

The leaves soon will turn and the smell of apple cider donuts and roasted corn will be in the air.

Soon, you’ll have to put on an extra layer to keep warm, but no one really will mind if it means enjoying a seasonal treat and spending some family time outside. It’s fall fairs and festivals season, and we’ve pulled together a list of some of the best this September and October, including a peek into Halloween fun. So grab a sweater and enjoy this in-between season before the real chill sets in.

 No matter where you live—Nassau, Suffolk, or the East End—fall on Long Island is beautiful, and there’s plenty of family fun to be had. Check out our fall fun guide for more ideas.

Whether you call them Grandma, Granddad, Nana, or Poppop, grandparents add an enormous amount of value to the life of a child. They're the best babysitters, treat sharers, spoilers, and we love them so. And what better excuse than Grandparents Day (September 9) to send the kids out for some fun with their grands...and get some time to yourself! To help you and the extended family out, we've rounded up some wonderful ways to celebrate grandparents. From sporting events to nature excursions, there is something for everyone. Keep reading to discover all the ways to show Mom Mom and Pop how much you love them this Grandparents Day. So, #DoSomethingGrand, #TakeAGrandie and make #GrandparentsDay special for the loved ones in your family.

There are a few things kids can do better than adults: cartwheels and crawling under beds, for example. And then there's learning languages. Kids have a huge capacity for learning languages that will never be as powerful and flexible later on as it is in the early years, and an increasing number of parents are taking advantage of that window by sending their kids to bilingual and dual immersion schools (and preschools). Southern Californian families are lucky to have an unusually wide variety of public school options to support raising bilingual kids. At a time when gifted programs, arts programs, and extracurricular classes have been cut from public school budgets at an alarming rate, parents can still seek out an extra enriching curriculum by choosing language immersion.