Free Things To Do Anytime in Summer 2018

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New York City's festival season kicks into high gear in June. The debut of warmer weather prompts a head-spinning number of fantastic fairs, parades, carnivals, and other fetes—more than two dozen.

And we're not talking about street fairs with random tchotchkes. These are favorites we look forward to every year, including Museum Mile, Egg Rolls, Egg Creams & Empanadas, Figment on Governors Island, and Coney Island's iconic Mermaid Parade—all of which made our list of the top annual festivals for NYC families.

So get your calendar; you're going to want to write these dates down. Here are more than two dozen great family festivals for June 2018, most of which are FREE.

Check our NYC Summer Fun Guide for more freebies and great kid and family events and outings, and be sure to click through to our listings for exact locations, times, and additional details.

Free Things To Do in August 2018

See July Events | See Anytime Events

Any New Yorker with the tiniest love of ice cream remembers when the Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC) debuted in Manhattan with a temporary pop-up in the summer of 2016. It was a full-on experience, from tastings by local ice cream purveyors to an interactive “sprinkle pool.” Tickets went quickly, like so much ice cream in the sun. The museum later expanded to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Now, the play-space-like dessert museum is returning to NYC in a new iteration, again in the Meatpacking-Chelsea area, and this time to stay.

On June 6, with helpful backing from Target, the Museum of Ice Cream will launch The Pint Shop, a permanent venue, which blends the MOIC experience with a visit to a grocery store, offering Brobdingnagian-sized pints, rows of new flavors for tasting, and interactive installations. There's also a paid, reservation-only ($28) Tasting Room, where the secrets of ice cream making are unlocked for all to see.

The collaboration with Target will extend nationally with a new MOIC-inspired children's apparel line and ice cream pints available at the national retailer.

Free outdoor music is one of the hallmarks of a great NYC summer...in our opinion anyway! Pack a picnic, stake out a spot, lay down a blanket, and soak up some no-cost culture in the form of New York City's top kindie bands as they play FREE concerts at some of the city's most beloved parks and playgrounds, including the annual BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Family Concert, featuring Los Lobos in 2018.

Of course, there are so many performances that it can be hard to figure out which ones are worth the time, energy, and schlep. That's why we've done the work for you. Read on for nearly two dozen cool concerts happening this June for NYC kids.

No, you’re not dreaming. It’s June already, and that signals the end of another school year. Kids across Long Island are already looking forward to some much-deserved time off from homework. Parents look forward to summer too, but with the expenses of end-of-year functions, camps, and vacations, June can start to really add up.

Fear not, you and the family can still enjoy this last month of school and stay on budget. We’ve rounded up a list of the best FREE things to do on Long Island in June. You won’t want to miss a close-up visit with wildlife, outdoor family yoga, amazing magic tricks, hunting for treasure, and more.

For more ways to enjoy early summer, check out our June GoList. Remember, our Long Island events calendar offers exciting family options as they develop throughout the month. You might also want to visit our guide to Long Island theme parks and water parks as the weather (hopefully) gets warmer.

From sunflowers and surfboards to ponchos and potatoes, the range of innovations by Native Americans is staggering. Their ingenuity is celebrated at the New York City branch of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), located in the Financial District, where the new imagiNATIONS Activity Center invites young visitors to explore the contributions of Native people through hands-on displays accompanied by kid-friendly texts in both English and Spanish.

The new center opened this May, and like the rest of the museum, is FREE to visit for all ages.

Families in Yonkers and up the Hudson can climb aboard a river adventure to see molten glass take shape before our very eyes. A boat that serves as classroom, workshop, and history lesson, The Corning Museum of Glass's first ever floating exhibit, GlassBarge, has set sail for four months through nearly 30 communities en route to a homecoming celebration in Corning, NY. We got a sneak peek when it set off from Brooklyn, where glass and kids' minds were equally blown.