Columbus Day Weekend and Fall Getaways

With the stress-inducing routines of school just getting under way, families may be looking for Columbus Day weekend getaways that are easy to undertake.  Washington D.C. is pleasantly cool in early fall, so you can enjoy its many free attractions without overheating.  October is peak foliage season in colorful upstate New York and Vermont, both easy to reach via Amtrak.  The beach can still be glorious this time of year, perfect for walks and building sand castle even if the water is chilly.  California families can consider an overnight trip to Los Angeles, where they can catch the Cleopatra Exhibition and spend the night in a stylish downtown hotel.  If you are not quite ready to part with your flip-flops and say goodbye to summer, the Riviera Nayarit in Mexico is offering real bargains right up until Christmas Day.

Kids begging to go to an outdoor festival or fair? Well you're in luck. This weekend is packed with annual favorites like the Queens County Farm Museum's County Fair, Fort Greene's BAM Fisher Block Party, the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum's Breukelen Country Fair, the New York Botanical Garden's Edible Garden Festival and a pair of Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festivals. And no that list isn't comprehensive!

There are also a bunch of cool indoor cultural activities. The Brooklyn Children's Museum reopens after its fall spruce up with the new exhibit Global Shoes plus two Suzi Shelton concerts and lots of special guests. 92YTribeca has kiddie band Lunch Money in concert and the annual Brooklyn Book Festival offers lots of kid-lit events to please young bookworms.

Those are just a few of the great things going on this weekend. All of our best bets are below and you can find additional options in our Event Calendar and our Fall Fun Guide.

In anticipation of autumn's arrival, I celebrated with pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin coffee! As Saturday marks the Autumnal Equinox, you'll find tons of fall celebrations this weekend like Terhune Orchard's Fall Family Fun event, Crystal Spring's Oktoberfest, Jumpstart Fall at Reeves Reed Arboretum, Mid Autumn Moon Festival in Morristown, and the Bedminster Fall Fest. Read on for all our top picks and remember, you can find a listing of all NJ activities for kids in our Event Calendar.

Seems like there's an autumn chill in the air so it's finally time to start thinking about indoor activities again. Appropriately enough, this week's links post has the scoop on a bunch of inside activities, including a new cooking school for kids, the long-term benefits of musical education and a pair of kids' art contests that should eat up an afternoon or two. We've also got sad news about the closing of one of our favorite drop-in play spaces, and cute new zoo babies. They always cheer us up.

The problem with giving various groups a designated month—Black History Month, Women's History Month, Gay Pride Month, etc.—is that after 30 or so days the topic is unceremoniously dropped and not mentioned until the next year. Well, we're not going to fall into that trap. While National Hispanic Heritage Month officially runs from September 15 to October 15, there are lots of ways to celebrate Hispanic culture all year round in New York City. (Not surprising since, according to the most recent census report, more than 2 million people of Hispanic descent live in the Big Apple!) Here are some of our favorite places to explore and learn about Latino culture with kids in NYC during National Hispanic Heritage Month and beyond.

We've been working hard on our Classes Guide, updating old posts and adding new ones. Reading about awesome and enriching kids' classes is always fun... until you get to the prices. That's why we reached out to some of our favorite programs and asked them to extend deals to our readers. The result is seven excellent offers for kids that you won't want to miss, from babies through tweens. Save big on classes like chess, music, animals, animation and more. Act fast! These deals are too hot to hang around long.

In the early 1940’s, a first grade teacher dreamed up a story about four orphaned children who set up house in a boxcar. It became a book called "The Boxcar Children," published in 1942. The teacher and author, Gertrude Chandler Warner, went on to write eighteen more books for the series.

Fast forward 70 years, to today. There are 130 books in the series, graphic novels, e-books, audio books, and a forthcoming animated film. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Boxcar Children series, a prequel written by Patricia MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain & Tall) has just been released, and there are events galore scheduled in New England. To get in on the action, read on for Boxcar Children-related activities and happenings in the Boston area and beyond, all the way to the hometown of Gertrude Chandler Warner in Putnam, Connecticut.