While regular grocery shopping can be a major chore with children along, checking out ethnic markets with your kids is truly great fun and packs a whollup in entertainment value. It’s always a super sensory experience tantalizing tots and teens alike with new smells (often heavenly), sights, colors and tastes too. From breathtaking beauties on dessert stands to radishes that look like trolls to ookie-gookie innards that belong in Ripley’s refrigerator and give your kiddos a bonus dose of weird anatomy, it’s all there to ogle and enjoy. Plus there is always unusual and frequently funny packaging to spice things up.  And all that tempting new food may expand a puny palate or two.  You can spend as little or as much as you wish and still have a grand ol’ time. Keep reading to find out our top picks for maximum fun at ethnic markets here in NYC!

The quaint streets of Saugerties, New York will be alive with food, music, crafts, entertainment and the pungent aroma of garlic on the weekend of September 25-26, when the annual Hudson Valley Garlic Festival will be scenting the area.  Garlic lovers from near and far will unite to celebrate this venerable bulb’s appeal with demonstrations on crafting and cooking with garlic, as well as lectures on a wide range of garlic-infused topics.  Even if your kid is garlic-adverse, this is a fabulous two day event for families, well worth the 100-mile journey from NYC.

If your kids like music planning this weekend will be easy for you. There are tons of live performances going on around town to choose from: an opera-musical at the Central Park Zoo, kiddie rockers performing in Tribeca, Carroll Gardens and The Bowery, a classical concert in The Bronx and an all day music-fest in Battery Park City.  This weekend also brings out those great annual celebrations the Feast of San Gennaro as well as the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.  When tired of great music or great eats check out some free arts and crafts programs, story telling, outdoor games or a movie premiere.

Read on to plan the fun and have a great weekend.

There’s a crazy amount of fun happening in Jersey this weekend, so much that we could only bring you the highlights. Lots of end of summer/back to school partying with Barista Kids and Duke Farms, a weekend of wackiness called Clownfest, and you can even shave your noggin bald for a good cause. The kids deserve some fun for surviving the first full week of school, so take them out to one of these events and have a blast!

Let's face it, kids love reading about other kids being bad. Kids become giddy as they gleefully chastise their naughty counterparts in classics like "Oh, David!." Here are a few new books that celebrate naughtiness—for educational purposes only, of course.

This giveaway is over. The World Maker Faire is making its New York debut this year, and we're lucky to be able to attend this festival of creativity and ingenuity without having to fly out to Cali. Started by MAKE magazine, the World Maker Faire is a celebration of imaginative, do-it-yourself, invention. Though kids will no doubt be in awe of the life-size mouse trap and Coke Zero/Mentos fountain, this way upgraded science fair sounds like it can definitely entertain us chaperones too. And some lucky Mommy Poppins readers will be going for free! Read on to learn more about this geek-tastic event, and enter to win four free tickets.

Normally a trip to a historic home in the Hudson Valley wouldn’t be the first thing on your child’s to do list, but this Sunday, September 19, 2010, there sure won’t be any whining if you suggest a trip to Washington Irving’s Sunnyside for Children’s Book Day. A fun festival day with sixty authors and illustrators from your kid’s favorite books ready to autograph their volumes and lots of other fun goings on.  

My family and I love this event and have gone for the past three years. It is a great way to find a new favorite book, something you may have overlooked in the bookstore, and spend a day outside.  Sunnyside, the Hudson River home of Washington Irving, is picturesque and just a nice place to be, and it is just outside of NYC in the village of Tarrytown, a quick trip in the car or on Metro North.

There is a staggering statistic being bandied around on tree hugger websites lately, that each school aged kid throws out 67 pounds of garbage a year with their home packed lunch. Multiply that by the number of school kids on your block and that is a lot of plastic wrap and juice boxes going into landfills every year.  It doesn’t have to be that way. When my son started full day school last year I made an effort to pack a “waste free lunch”. To my surprise it was easy.  Cutting back on all that trash even saved me money. Now if I could just figure out how to get him to eat what I pack!  

Read on for our tips on how to build a greener and cheaper lunch.