Festivals and musical celebrations - this weekend offers a hint of what’s to come as the season kicks in to high gear - from the banks of the Charles for the Cambridge River Festival to the streets of Lexington for Lexington Discovery Day, from the ICA for a Boston Children’s Chorus concert to the Boston Children’s Museum for a concert with a trio of Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians, from Topsfield for the Audubon Nature Festival to City Hall Plaza for the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl (Tuesday through Thursday).

And that’s just the start of the month. How about Fresh Pond Day, World Oceans Day, Parkland Games? These are just some of the cool events highlighted in our June Go List. Thinking about a trip to Cape Cod this summer? Take a look at our list of 25 fun things to do with kids in Chatham. Looking for things to do closer to home? How about what to do (and what not to do) at Drumlin Farm with a preschooler - fun!

Read on for our picks of the week, and be sure to check our calendar of events for more happenings.

Enjoy!

Since much of Memorial Day weekend was a washout, we're hoping that sprinkler and beach season starts in earnest this Saturday, especially since the MTA is finally restoring service on the A and S lines to Rockaway Beach! Looking for dry fun? There are a bunch of FREE festivals including two of our annual favorites: the Great Howl! Out Loud Kids Carnival in Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park's Ultimate Science Street Fair (that's my son in the photo at the 2010 fest).

Other cool activities include a walking (and eating) tour of the Lower East Side, an art-filled family day at the Whitney and the return of the FREE Sing for Hope pianos that are popping up all around town.

These are just a few of the great things going on this weekend. All of our best bets are below. You can find additional options in our Event Calendar and our Summer Fun Guide. And if you're looking to plan out your entire month, check out the new edition of our NYC Go List, which highlights the absolute best things to do with kids throughout June.

If you are like me, you don't carry around a laptop when out for a day of fun with the family. I rely on my phone for everything, so when I heard  The Mommy Poppins App is coming, I got really excited! The Mommy Poppins App will allow you to use your phone to find all the resources we write about online — places to jump, dance, create, learn, shop, eat and more.

Creating an app is very time consuming and costly, and we've been working on it for months. We are on track to debut in June, but we're hoping you can help make it happen. We've got some great incentives if you do, so please check out The Mommy Poppins App today.

It's going to be hot the next few days so you might want to check out our CT Summer Beach and Water Fun Guide. Did you know that CT has over 600 miles of coastline? Beaches aren't the only place to have water fun. There are plenty of water parks, lakes and rivers to splash around in too!

With Memorial Day behind us and the first weekend in June just ahead, it sure feels good to welcome the warm summer months! June is full of family fun, whether you check out the Scottish Festival and Highland Games at Bonnie Brae, take a nature walk with your canine companion at Whittemore Wildlife Sanctuary or enjoy those first juicy strawberries of the season at Alstede Farms. Read on for our top picks and find a listing of all NJ activities in our Event Calendar.

This edition of our biweekly news roundup is kind of all over the place. We've got the scoop on a new children's shoe store in Williamsburg and a new school fundraising craze, as well as the death of a beloved NYC kid lit great and the demise of a popular summer family movie series in East River State Park. Plus, FREE golf in Midtown West, a chance for a lucky Brooklyn high school student to win a laptop, pianos to play throughout the five boroughs and more.

From a very young age, my twins gravitated towards creating art in various forms.  Whether my son is sculpting food or super heroes with PlayDoh or my daughter is sketching an imaginary landscape, someone, somewhere in my home is creating art.  With my own art skills lacking (I'm the writer, NOT the artist), we needed to enlist some professionals to help our kiddos hone their skills.  In our part of the state, here in Eastern Connecticut, we luckily had a large selection of classes to choose from!

While there are lots of wonderful children's books about New York City, our kids are lucky enough to live here. They don't need to read a book to find out what it's like to play in the street on a snowy day or run amok at the Plaza or visit the Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.

Yet there are times when flipping through a book about an iconic NYC experience can actually get local children excited for the real thing, like going to an art museum. Recently, Mommy Poppins founder Anna got her nine-year-old psyched for the Gutai exhibit at the Guggenheim by giving him Speeding Down the Spiral: An Artful Adventure, a picture book about visiting the museum that contained a catalog of its permanent collection. He pored over the images and couldn't wait to see the works of art in person.

There are other inspiring kids' books out there about exploring NYC's great art institutions. We're not talking about those general enjoy-the-museum stories that take place at fictitious culture spots. These 10 titles work as primers so your kids will be excited to spend a day at the museum, be it the Met, the Guggenheim or MoMA.