Your guide to 226 things to do with kids in New York, including Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Party and Dig! Plant! Grow, and more — updated weekly…
11 kids activities and family events are listed in New York right now, including 3 free things to do.
Updated August 2026
Where to take kids across the five boroughs — which museums are worth the admission, what to do when the weather turns, and how to get a family around on the subway.
The American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side is the anchor day out: the blue whale, the dinosaur halls and the Rose Center planetarium, plus the Richard Gilder Center's insectarium and butterfly vivarium. Give it a full day and enter from Columbus Avenue to skip the Central Park West line. Across the park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art works better than parents expect with the Egyptian temple and the arms and armor hall. Central Park itself is the other half of any Manhattan day — the Central Park Zoo, the Heckscher and Ancient Playgrounds, the carousel, and rowboats from Loeb Boathouse.
For a bigger trip, the Bronx Zoo is the largest urban zoo in the country and needs a whole day, the New York Botanical Garden next door has the Everett Children's Adventure Garden, and the Intrepid Museum on the Hudson puts an aircraft carrier, a submarine and a space shuttle in one visit. Coney Island combines the Cyclone, the New York Aquarium and the boardwalk, and the free Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty is still the best deal in the city. See the top 10 attractions for kids in New York for the full shortlist.
More is free here than the ticket prices suggest. The Staten Island Ferry, the Brooklyn Bridge walk, the High Line, Governors Island (ferry fare only, and free on weekend mornings) and the Bronx Zoo on Wednesdays all cost nothing or close to it. The Hudson River Park piers have free playgrounds and the Pier 25 mini golf area; Brooklyn Bridge Park has Jane's Carousel, the Pier 6 water play and slides, and one of the best skylines in the city. Prospect Park is free for the Long Meadow, the Audubon Center and the LeFrak Center rinks in season, and the Staten Island Greenbelt and Pelham Bay Park are full-size wilderness inside the city limits. Note the difference between "free" and "pay-what-you-wish": the Met is pay-what-you-wish for New York State residents only, while the AMNH is pay-what-you-wish for NY, NJ and CT residents — bring ID.
For scheduled free programs rather than open space, check free events for kids in New York — branch library story hours, NYC Parks programming and museum drop-in craft sessions make up most of the list.
Winter and summer both push families indoors here, so a covered fallback matters. The Brooklyn Children's Museum in Crown Heights and the Children's Museum of Manhattan on the Upper West Side are built for under-10s and are the two best wet-weather options in the city. The New York Hall of Science in Queens is the most hands-on science museum in the five boroughs, and the Transit Museum in a decommissioned Brooklyn subway station lets kids climb through vintage cars. Add the New York Aquarium at Coney Island, the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria for 8+, and the indoor play and climbing centers across Brooklyn and Queens, which take walk-ins outside school breaks.
Filter to museum events for kids in New York, arts and crafts workshops or family theater shows when you need something fully undercover.
Toddlers (0–4): the Central Park Zoo and its Tisch Children's Zoo, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Ancient Playground beside the Met, Jane's Carousel and the Queens County Farm Museum. Keep it to two hours near a restroom and a stroller-friendly café. Toddler activities in New York shows what is currently programmed for this age.
Ages 5–8: the AMNH dinosaur halls, the Bronx Zoo, the Intrepid, the New York Hall of Science and the Coney Island boardwalk. Activities for children aged 6–11 lists what is on for this bracket now.
Ages 9–12: the Rose Center planetarium, the Intrepid's space shuttle pavilion, the 9/11 Memorial (the Museum suits older kids in this range), the Museum of the Moving Image, the Edge or Top of the Rock, and climbing gyms in Brooklyn and Long Island City. This age also gets the most from outdoor activities across the city — Governors Island by bike, the Rockaways in summer and the Bronx river trails.
Children under 44 inches tall ride the subway and buses free, and OMNY caps fares automatically after twelve rides in a week, so tapping as you go is cheaper than buying passes. The practical constraint is stairs: most subway stations are not accessible, so check which stations have elevators before committing to a route with a stroller, or take the bus, which kneels and is always step-free. Manhattan is a grid and twenty blocks is roughly a mile, which makes walking distances easy to judge with kids. Skip driving — parking near any major attraction is expensive and street parking with a family is a losing game. The free Staten Island Ferry and the NYC Ferry routes to Governors Island, DUMBO and the Rockaways double as sightseeing. Book the AMNH, the Intrepid and the Edge online in advance; walk-up lines at all three run long on weekends and school breaks.