OCTOBER 6-28
(Weekends Only) Boo at the Zoo returns to the Bronx Zoo with everything little hearts could ask for this Halloween. On top of annual favorites like the Haunted Habitat Mansion of ghosts and extinct animals and a hayride through the animated Creepy Hollows town, magic shows, an extinction graveyard, intricate pumpkin carvings and costume parades will amp up the eerie fun. bronxzoo.com

OCTOBER 6–31
(Tuesdays-Fridays) The giant sculptures at the New York Botanical Haunted Pumpkin Garden will send delicious chills down little spines. Get more thrills from a spooky parade, a scary puppet show and lessons on creatures of the night. If you visit on the third weekend of the month, you’ll also see master pumpkin carver Ray Villafane at work. nybg.org

OCTOBER 27
Join the New York City Police Museum for a ghoulish good time at its annual Halloween party. Kids can immerse themselves in making slime, decorating trick-or-treat bags and winning giveaways while their parents brush up on trick-or-treating safety skills. Children should come in their best creepy costumes! 11 a.m.- 2 p.m., nycpolicemuseum.org

OCTOBER 27
Get ready for a fun-packed night of ghostly games at Ripley’s Boo-lieve It or Not! Slumber Fest. This eerie overnight experience includes adventures like Ripley’s signature laser beam race and costume contests, as well as snacks, pizza and breakfast. Come prepared with courage and spooky sleepover necessities.
ripleysnewyork.com

OCTOBER 28
It’s time for Central Park’s Halloween Parade and Pumpkin Sail! Don your scariest disguise and strut your stuff, then bring your best carved pumpkin to the city’s largest flotilla. As the day of Halloween fanfare fades into twilight, the sight of glowing, grinning pumpkins bobbing down the lake will raise some goose bumps. centralparknyc.org

OCTOBER 28
Bring the kids costumed up for The Queens County Farm Museum’s Fall Festival, where the family can enjoy sack races, hunt for trinkets in the haystack, dance to country music and fill up with goodies from crafts and food vendors. Tip: Stick around after the fall fest for the kids’ Haunted House that has just the right amount of scare. queensfarm.org

OCTOBER 31
The American Museum of Natural History is dedicating a whopping 30 halls to trick-or-treating, crafts and more at its annual Halloween Sleepover. Costumed kiddies can dance to performances from hit stars and possibly even get the chance to hang with big-screen cartoon characters. (Registration required.) amnh.org

OCTOBER 31
Just because it’s your baby’s first Halloween doesn’t mean he or she can’t partake in spooky fun. For babies 0-12 months and their parents, Mommybites’ Baby’s First Halloween Party presents a Little Maestros performance, light snacks and bonding time with other new moms and dads. Make sure you dress to impress for chance to win costume contest prizes! mommybites.com

ONGOING
Hit up Times Scare’s Dr. Blood Show anytime this month (or this year) for kid-friendly blood, guts and gore as the expert magician cuts off his limbs and saws audience members in half. For tweens and young adults, The Haunt, the city’s only year-round interactive haunted house, is the perfect place to enjoy some hi-tech spooks.
timesscarenyc.com

1. Our zoos and aquariums have lots of popular animals. Match the following with the names everyone knows them by:

A. A male California sea lion at the Bronx Zoo

B. A polar bear at the Central Park Zoo

C. A sea otter at the New York Aquarium

1. Gus

2. Tazo

3. Kiani

Find the full quiz at New York Family Magazine by clicking here.

You and the kids may be dyed-in-the-wool urbanites, but come summer, that doesn’t mean that you don’t crave cooling ocean breezes and sand between your toes, yearn for the chance to break out binoculars (you just have to find them first) and gaze up at the stars, and desperately want to set up a tent somewhere other than your coop’s living room. Here’s how you can get out of your walk-up and into the New York City “wilderness” as soon as the weather warms.

CAMPING

COOLEST CAMPING FOR KIDS
Fridays and Saturdays in July and August, families can join the Urban Park Rangers (nycgovparks.org) for an overnight camping experience in New York City. The night includes a cookout and other evening activities like stargazing, nocturnal walks, orienteering, nature crafts, campfires, fishing and bird-watching. The program is free, but registration is required and campers are chosen by a lottery system. Participating locations include:
Van Cortlandt Park | Bronx
Marine Park | Brooklyn
Central Park | Manhattan
Alley Pond Park | Queens
High Rock Park | Staten Island

MOST MAGICAL STARGAZING
The city that never sleeps is not the ideal venue for aspiring astronomers, but there are still a couple of places that offer the least light pollution—perfect for spotting shooting stars.
Floyd Bennett Field | Gateway National Recreation Center | Brooklyn
nps.gov/gate
Great Kills Park | Staten Island
nycgovparks.org

BEST PLACE TO SNOOZE WITH ANIMALS
Family Overnight Safari | Bronx Zoo
This popular family event books up early and features a picnic dinner, hands-on animal experiences, scavenger hunts, games, sing-alongs, guided walks and a sea lion wake-up call. wcs.org

NATURE

BEST FOR BIRD-WATCHING
Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Gateway National Recreation Area | Queens
Look for long-legged waders like egrets, herons and ibises; shorebirds like sandpipers and plovers; and a variety of songbirds such as olive-sided flycatchers and blue grosbeaks at this bird sanctuary—one of the largest in the northeastern United States. nyharborparks.org

MOST MAGNIFICENT TREE
Magnolia Tree Earth Center | Brooklyn
The 40-foot Magnolia grandiflora at this nature center was declared a living landmark in 1970 and is an excellent way to teach your kids about the importance of trees (and sadly, their rarity) in urban landscapes. nycgovparks.org

PERFECT RAINY DAY ACTIVITY IN CENTRAL PARK
Charles A. Dana Discovery Center Central Park | Manhattan
The kids had their heart set on exploring Central Park, but it’s raining cats and dogs. Now what? Dash between the raindrops to the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center for a perfect (not to mention, dry) view of the 11-acre Harlem Meer and learn all about the wildlife found there, including great egrets, cormorants and bullfrogs. centralparknyc.org

BEST NATURE CENTER IN DISGUISE
The Henry Luce Nature Observatory at Belvedere Castle, Central Park | Manhattan
From this vantage point, you can view migrating hawks and monarch butterflies, turtles sunning themselves on pond rocks and birds flitting about the Ramble. Plus, there’s plenty to see inside the Woodlands and Water Discovery Room. centralparknyc.org

OLDIE BUT A GOODIE
Alley Pond Environmental Center, Alley Pond Park | Queens
Tucked inside the 635-acre Alley Pond Park, this nature center—which opened in the ’70s— was one of the city’s first of its kind. Its Animal Room lets kids get up close and personal with the likes of Bernie the Corn Snake, Loke the Prairie Dog and Henry the Ring-Necked Dove. It boasts a myriad of family programs, including nature walks on the Alley Pond Nature Trail, nature photography classes, animal care training and stargazing workshops. alleypond.com

GREAT FOR BAT-WATCHING
Bats abound in the city, but during the day they stay tucked away, hanging upside down and hiding from predators. The best time to see them is in the summertime at dusk, especially on humid evenings. Here’s where to go to catch a glimpse of these furry, flying creatures:
The Gerritsen Creek Nature Trail
Marine Park | Brooklyn
nycgovparks.org
The Great Hill, Central Park | Manhattan
centralparknyc.org
Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Gateway National Recreational Area | Queens
nps.gov/gate
Spring Pond, Blue Heron Park | Staten Island
nycgovparks.org

THE BEST OF BOTANICAL GARDENS
New York Botanical Garden | Bronx
Oh, the many reasons to visit this massive, gorgeous garden this summer: the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the country’s largest Victorian glasshouse; the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden featuring a boulder maze, hedge maze, a natural wetland and Discovery Center; and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden—where kids can dig, plant and grow in one of the many hands-on gardening activities on offer. nybg.org

Brooklyn Botanic Garden | Brooklyn
This oasis is home to the country’s longest operating children’s garden (it opened in 1914), and its 52 acres are the perfect size to explore with young ones. Go in June, when the Cranford Rose Garden’s blooms are at their most magnificent. bbg.org

Queens Botanical Garden | Queens
The Bee Garden houses plants and trees that attract bees or flavor honey—if nothing else, it provides an ample opportunity to have that proverbial talk with your kids (wink, nudge). The shady Woodland Garden, with its woodchip-covered walking trails and streams, will make the whole fam forget that you’re actually smack dab in the middle of Flushing. queensbotanical.org

Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden | Staten Island
Children will love the Connie Gretz Secret Garden, a charming space inspired by the 1911 children’s classic of the same name featuring a turreted castle and a hedge maze leading to its very own secret, brick-walled garden of dogwoods, roses, and other blooming trees and flowers. snug-harbor.org

MOST ECLECTIC COMMUNITY GARDEN
Liz Christy Garden, Lower East Side | Manhattan
Located on the northeast corner of Bowery and Houston Streets, the city’s oldest community garden houses: a pond home to fish and red-eared slider turtles, a wildflower habitat, wooden furniture perfect for afternoon storytime, a grape arbor, a grove of weeping birch trees, fruit trees, a dawn redwood, vegetable gardens, berries, herbs and hundreds of flowers. After racking up 20 hours volunteering, your family is granted a key. lizchristygarden.us

The Muppet version of Mayor Bloomberg. Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons.

The Muppets are taking Manhattan – and the rest of New York City as well.

Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Gonzo showed up in Manhattan last week to announce that they and their fellow Muppets have signed on as the city’s official family ambassadors over the next 12 months.

“Having Kermit as a family ambassador for New York is pretty exciting, and I know it’s going to make other cities – listen carefully – just green with envy,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a quip-filled press conference to kick of the initiative.

The Muppets are partnering with NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, to encourage families to visit, offering tips on www.nyc.gov and publicizing places like the Bronx Zoo, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Coney Island.

Last year families visiting the city spent about $14 billion, according to the mayor’s office, and accounted for some 30 percent of the city’s record-breaking 50.5 million visitors.

Signing on the Muppets is part of the city’s initiative to reach 55 million visitors annually by 2015, which Bloomberg said would continue to create jobs and boost the economy.

“It’s one of the reasons why we weathered the recession better than other cities, and it creates an enormous amount of jobs and gives people an understanding of just how great New York is, so they come here for education, for medical care, for vacations, to start businesses,” Bloomberg said.

The collaboration is a natural one. The Muppets starred in The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984, and Bloomberg also shared a scene with Miss Piggy in a holiday TV special, in which he admitted he “did ham it up a bit.”

“New York has been kind of home to the Muppets in one way or another since the 1960s when I first came here with a guy named Jim Henson to see if we could break into show business,” said Kermit, adding that he has a place in Central Park – not on Central Park. “New York is part of the Muppets. This city helped make us who we are today.”

Gonzo touted Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and his personal favorite, the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He added that he would be giving tips on the best places to water ski on the East River.

And Miss Piggy, who said she could usually be found having breakfast at Tiffany’s, raved about the city’s restaurants, shopping boutiques, department stores and flea markets.

To read the full article at City & State click here.