This weekend you have two options: Take the red pill and it’s hasta la vista summer, hello school. Pop the blue one and your summer never ends. Red pill and this weekend is your last hurrah (better watch that bedtime; you need to be bright and early on Monday and/or Tuesday). Blue pill and you can sleep in all you want (unless you want to catch some killer waves).

Some choices are made for you, but others are yours alone to make. How will you decide between the closing weekend of the Ventura County Fair and the closing weekend of the Orange County Fair?  Between the free My Little Pony Shakespeare in Culver City, and the free Grimm-inspired comedy in Culver City? Between the Natsumatsuri Festival at the Japanese American National Museum, Shark Week at the Natural History Museum, Shine and the Moonbeams at the Getty, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band at the LevittLA Concert series, the celebrity-filled Annual Children’s Festival of the Arts, Gladys Knight and Kool & the Gang at the Hollywood Bowl, or a meet-and-greet with PBS Kids' Arthur … which free screening will you attend? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? A Star Trek double feature? Field of Dreams? The Wizard of Oz or Despicable Me?

Whatever choice you make, we hope you do so with curiosity and joy. Because whether you spend it in the classroom or out in the endless bounty of the So Cal outdoors, this season is still the Summer of Play.

Keep reading for the many, many choices available to you this weekend ....

We loved Adventure Aquarium's KidZone back in the spring, but AA is all about the sharks this summer. Big ones. Scary ones. Prehistoric ones. 17 species call the aquarium home, more than anywhere on the east coast. And there’s a little bit of shark thrill for every age, from the cheerful, cartoony Great White sculpture that welcomes tiny tots to the impressive hammerheads. Here’s the lowdown on “Shark Fest”.  Dive in!

Three of our top picks for August take place this weekend: the FREE Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, a trio of offbeat FringeJr family theater shows at the 14th Street Y and the second installment of Manhattan's car-free Summer Streets. My family is really looking forward to that last one (we go every year), plus we hope to make it out to Governors Island for its Civil War Heritage Weekend.

Whatever yo do this weekend, remember to share photos of your family having fun on social media for a chance to win our SUMMER OF PLAY grand prize: Everything you need to throw the ULTIMATE SUMMER OF PLAY BASH, including gift cards for toys, tableware and decorations, and healthy snacks. If you need playtime inspiration, we have hundreds of ideas in our SUMMER OF PLAY GUIDE.

All of our best bets for this weekend are below. You can find additional options in our Event Calendar and our Summer Fun Guide. Before heading out on your adventures, be sure to download our FREE Mommy Poppins Kids on the Go app so you can find the best family destinations wherever you happen to be in NYC.

It may be the lazy days of summer but we're going full throttle here at Mommy Poppins with (almost all) good news. In fact, we have lots of things to sing about, in particular a brand-new series of kiddie music classes created by children's music legend and NYC mom Laurie Berkner. Plus info on signing up for this year's edition of Morningside Lights, how to snag two-for-one Broadway theater tickets come September, the latest on the battle to keep public school student data private, the sad closure of an Old New York soda fountain and other tidbits of interest to NYC families.

Growing up in the midwest, seafood was always sort of a special thing … or a strange thing.  Raising my kids on the coast, I don’t want them to have a second thought, or have them sneering at a lovely clambake spread.  Even if you’re a fifth generation New Englander, you can still have a kid with an aversion to the smell/look, etc. of any given sea creature.  I figure part of the fun, and all of the flavor, is contingent on finding a good fish market — one with good selection, fair prices and fish heads for the kids to squeal about.  Bonus points if you can find one that's sourcing responsibly.  (Click here for a free guide to guilt-free fish buying, published by the Monterey Bay Aquarium). We’ve only begun our hunt as a family, but I’ve had time to sample a few over the years, and polled my friends across Fairfield County for their faves.

August might be upon us, but summer in the Hamptons and the North Fork is still in full swing with more than a few family-friendly events happening, from the Sag Harbor Fire Department Carnival to a flea market in Westhampton Beach. We've come up with 9 must-attend events during the weekend of August 8-10.

Be sure to check out our Long Island Calendar for more kid-friendly activities, as well as our Hamptons and North Fork Guide. And don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you can receive our roundup of fun things to do delivered directly to your inbox.

And for those of you staying out on the East End during the week, be sure to check out CMEE's Summer Concert Series every Tuesday this month. Mommy Poppins Hamptons and North Fork Family Guide is a proud sponsor and we'll be on hand each week with a new prize to give away! This Tuesday (8/12) will feature Tim and the Space Cadets, and we're giving away a $200 voucher toward a Manhattan birthday party.