Raven Snook

Raven is a writer, editor, performer and mom, who was born and bred in NYC, just like her husband, her mother and now, her daughter. As a writer, she's contributed articles to New York Magazine, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, the New York Post, TV Guide, Better Homes and Gardens, iVillage, AOL TV and Moviefone, Parents.com, and worked as an in-house editor for ParentsConnect.com and TimeOutKids.com. As a performer, she's appeared on many downtown stages (sometimes even for pay!), a couple of obscure films and TV shows, and The Maury Povich Show as a female drag queen. She's also the founder of Hot Mama Burlesque, the world's only all-moms burlesque show. After being the NYC editor from March 2011-March 2015, she is now happy to just be a blogger as she pursues additional writing opportunities.

Latest posts by Raven Snook

This Week: Free Halloween Fun for Kids in NYC & Beyond, Special Mommy Poppins Family Events, Ice-skating Season Starts

Submitted by Raven Snook on Thu, 10/17/2013 - 4:00pm

We have quite a busy weekend in store here at Mommy Poppins. On Saturday, we're hosting our Halloween Family Cruise on New York Harbor, featuring the wacky antics of Dr. Blood, a costume parade, face painting, nautical skills and tasty treats. Then on Sunday, it's our first-ever Mommy Poppins Night at the New Victory Theater. Enjoy the charming family production Me and My Shadow, a pre-show puppet workshop and a post-show meet and greet with the cast, plus a 20% discount on tickets. There are still tickets available for the sail and the show, so we hope to see you at one of these special events—or both!

Meanwhile, everything's coming up Halloween on all of our sites. This week we rounded up FREE family costume parades in NYC and Westchester; haunted houses in New Jersey and on Long Island; NJ haunted hayrides and fun ideas for non-edible treats to hand out on Halloween.

Our Travel site continued its series on vacationing in the U.K. with a post about things to do with kids in Cornwall, England. Plus we've got a roundup of the ten best hotel chains for families including categories like best value and coolest amenities. And there are still a few hours left to enter our Songs for Seeds preschool music class giveaway.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

This Week: Columbus Day Weekend Fun, Best Halloween Events for NYC Kids, Mommy Poppins Night at the New Victory Theater

Submitted by Raven Snook on Thu, 10/10/2013 - 4:00pm

The Columbus Day holiday weekend is the big to-do on all of our sites—and probably at your family dinner table, too. Three whole days off! The perfect time to take a family day trip (our Travel site has some great holiday weekend discounts), or go pumpkin picking, or prepare for the Halloween season by hitting a costume swap, making some creepy crafts and putting the absolute best seasonal celebrations in your calendar.

Our Halloween Guides in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut are already filled with fearsome fun, from the obvious (best Halloween celebrations, kid-friendly haunted houses, etc.) to the offbeat (NYC cemetery tours, Halloween train rides and amazing outdoor jack-o'-lantern installations). Speaking of unique Halloween events, our Mommy Poppins Halloween Family Cruise is coming up next Saturday, October 19. Hit New York Harbor on Manhattan by Sail's haunted Clipper City Tall Ship with the hilarious Dr. Blood, who'll perform kooky science experiments, creepy magic tricks and lead a kids' costume parade. Other attractions include face painting, nautical skills, incredible views and treats for all. Buy your tickets before they're gone.

Other good things to do today? Enter our soon-to-end Created by Kids art class giveaway and book your tickets to our Mommy Poppins Night at the New Victory Theater next Sunday, October 20—read on for details.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

inBloom: Should You Be Concerned About Student Data Privacy?

Submitted by Raven Snook on Tue, 10/08/2013 - 9:00am

Update: As of April 2014 the New York State Education Department has decided to cancel its contract with inBloom. It was a hard-won fight!

There's a story I've been following for a while now about the controversy surrounding a company called inBloom. Backed by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, inBloom stores student data in an online cloud, including grades, test scores, teacher observations about behavior, and even more sensitive information like special education status, family history and disciplinary records. The supposed goal is to help teachers and schools easily track each student's progress, provide more personalized instruction and inspire digital developers to create new and innovative educational tools. However, many parents and education activists across the country are concerned that inBloom violates students' privacy in a big way and that the data may end up being compromised or sold to the highest bidder.

While inBloom is a national venture, as of now only three states plan to use its services, including New York State. It's important to note that out of the original nine states who were interested in inBloom, six have pulled out due to privacy concerns. According to an article in last week's New York Times, the New York State Education Department has already uploaded data for 90% of its charter and public school students, and there is no way for individual districts, schools or families to opt out. But there are things parents can do to voice their concerns and possibly stave off or at least change the scope of inBloom.

This Week: Best Kids Events for October, Halloween Ramp Up, Download the Free Mommy Poppins App

Submitted by Raven Snook on Thu, 10/03/2013 - 4:00pm

The government may be shut down but we here at Mommy Poppins are still hard at work, especially with Halloween on the horizon. (Ah, if only we ran the world.) All of our sites published October Go Lists this week, so you can get a jump on the very best things to do throughout the month in NYC, Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecitcut and beyond. Most of our sites have jam-packed Halloween Guides, too, which we're in the process of updating. Just this week, we published posts about kid-friendly haunted houses in NYC and Westchester, haunted walks on Long Island, easy-to-make Halloween crafts and where to find costume swaps around the country. And we've got a frightening number of additional Halloween posts on the way.

Of course the biggest news around here is the official launch of our FREE Mommy Poppins App, which is available for download in the iTunes store. Now you can find the best places for kids to learn, create, shop, eat and play indoors and out while on the go in NYC. Don't have an iPhone? Don't worry: We plan to release a version for Android soon, plus we're also working on servicing the other regions our sites cover. So stay tuned.

Finally, this week's giveaway is sure to please young soccer buffs: five family four-packs to see a New York Cosmos home game plus Cosmos backpacks. The giveaway ends soon so enter now.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

Halloween Costume Swaps for Kids: Where to Find Free, New-to-you Costumes

Submitted by Raven Snook on Mon, 09/30/2013 - 9:00am

Unfortunately, National Costume Swap isn't happening in 2015. My eight-year-old daughter is the Imelda Marcos of costumes. Every Halloween she's invited to a terrifying number of celebrations and she insists on a different outfit for each one. I happen to love dressing up, too, so, I admit, I indulge her. Trouble is, she outgrows her costumes much more quickly than I do mine—we never get more than one Halloween season out of them.

Instead of throwing all of those barely used costumes into the donation bin (or worse, the landfill), we've found a better, eco-friendly option that saves us money and is actually pretty fun: Halloween costume swaps. At these community events, you trade your child's old costumes for new-to-you outfits. My daughter enjoys tearing through tables piled high with outlandish getups, and I love hanging on to my cash.

Costume swaps have really taken off in popularity in recent years as families become ever more frugal and environmentally aware. In fact, there's even an annual National Costume Swap Day! This year's edition officially takes place on Saturday, October 12, but local community organizations across the country hold costume swaps on various dates throughout the month. We've got the scoop on how to find costume swaps in your area and tips on how to host your own.

New Victory Theater 2013-14 Season Highlights: The Best Family Shows for NYC Kids

Submitted by Raven Snook on Sun, 09/29/2013 - 10:00am

My daughter and I see a mind-boggling number of kids' shows every year. (One of the exhausting perks of being a Mommy Poppins blogger!) Some are wonderful; others, not so much (those are the shows I don't write about).

While there are lots of New York City theater troupes mounting productions for kids, there's one that consistently stands out: the New Victory Theater. Based in a beautiful and historic Off Broadway house, the nonprofit company produces a full season of eclectic works aimed at families. And when I say families, I mean every single member: I find that I often enjoy the shows as much as my daughter because they're offbeat, thought-provoking and never dumbed down or condescending. But the New Victory is much more than just a place to go see a show. Through a range of interactive educational activities like performance workshops and camps, post-show talk-backs and TXT Marks the Spot (a seriously cool high-tech scavenger hunt after select performances), the organization is raising the next generation of theatergoers and performing artists.

As longtime fans, we here at Mommy Poppins are excited to announce our new partnership with the New Victory Theater, which brings our readers more access to its incredible lineup of shows, ticket discounts and two exclusive special events (stay tuned for details). We begin with a preview of the New Victory 2013-2014 season, including show recommendations for every age and stage, tips on how to save money on tickets, exclusive video from the upcoming productions and details about enriching programs that may be under your radar.

This Week: Pumpkin Patches Near NYC, Early Halloween Fun, Brand-new Central Park Playground

Submitted by Raven Snook on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 4:00pm

I feel like summer just ended and school just started. Yet already it's fall and my daughter is complaining because we haven't figured out our family Halloween costumes. To help you avoid seasonal nagging in your home, we've started overhauling our NYC Kids Halloween Guide, including updating our roundups of pumpkin patches near NYC, on Long Island and in New Jersey, as well as posts about popular Halloween happenings that require advance tickets like the Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze in Historic Hudson Valley and the New York Botanical Garden's Haunted Pumpkin Garden.

Other posts of note: Our Westchester site wrote about the new Mount Kisco drop-in creative spot, Arts Garage, part of the popular go-kart track and bowling alley Grand Prix. Our bloggers in Los Angeles shared ideas for managing your child's food allergies in school and at parties. Meanwhile our Boston site has tips about being a good spectator at your kids' sporting events and 20 ways to ease the pain of flying internationally with a toddler. That info should come in handy if you're inspired to visit Bristol, UK after reading our post about all the fun things to do with kids there.

Feeling lucky this week? Use that mojo to enter to win our current giveaways: a children's art class at the Art Studio on the Upper West Side and a family four-pack to see The Wiggles in concert in Westbury, Long Island. Both giveaways end soon so enter right away.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC this week:

East Village Family-Friendly Restaurants

Submitted by Raven Snook on Thu, 09/26/2013 - 9:00am

With almost as many restaurants as NYU students, the East Village offers a wide variety of places to eat. The big issue for parents is that many of the eateries aren't traditionally family-friendly. They're pricey with exotic dishes (by kid standards, anyway), and filled with black-clad twenty-somethings who roll their eyes at the very sight of a child.

But as long as you're not expecting high chairs or chicken fingers and fries, there are a lot of great East Village restaurants that welcome families, even though they're not the main clientele. My daughter and I spend a lot of time in the neighborhood and we're big fans of a lot of local eateries, both new and old. And when I say old, I mean it: Some of our top picks, like Indian Row, date back to my childhood. Others, like Yonah Schimmel, my 78-year-old mother remembers going to as a kid!

We finish up our month-long focus on the East Village with a roundup of our 15 favorite places to eat in the area with kids, most of which my family can vouch for personally. You can find more family dining posts in our NYC Kid-Friendly Restaurant Guide.

Latest posts by Raven Snook

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