SummerStage Kids International Contemporary Circus Festival

Adventurous young New Yorkers won’t have to run away to the circus this summer; the circus will be coming to them. As part of this annual festival, presented by the City Parks Foundation and supported by Disney, contemporary companies — whose acts emphasize acrobatics and physical theater rather than animals — will be offering free performances all over the city. The fun starts on Friday evening in the Bronx with three troupes — Hybrid Movement Company, the Incredible Incredible and Impact Repertory Theater —   doing dance, acrobatics and illusions. Then the focus shifts to Brooklyn on Saturday and Sunday with performances by Magmanus, a Swedish company featuring a small acrobat, a large juggler and lots of flights through the air.

‘Connected Worlds’

Human choices and actions have an impact on the world’s ecosystems, but people usually can’t see the effects as they happen. That isn’t true in this new permanent exhibition in the renovated Great Hall of the New York Hall of Science. Consisting of huge screens (one is 38 feet tall), the show, opening on Saturday, depicts six interconnected environments with a shared water supply. With the help of technology that responds to gestures, “Connected Worlds” allows children to plant, harvest, cut trees, create clouds and make other changes in the projected landscapes, and see how the native flora and fauna fare.

Friskies Playhouse

Who do you think will draw more celebrity-obsessed fans at this event: Steve Weatherford, punter for the New York Giants, or Waffles, that feline darling of the Internet? Of course, they might both be upstaged by all the kittens at this free adoption fair, sponsored by Friskies and Petfinder. In addition to playing with an array of cats in need of homes, young visitors can play games with Mr. Weatherford and pose for photos with their new friends.

‘Mad Hot Ballroom’ 10th Anniversary Celebration

The Washington Heights neighborhood is probably better known for salsa than for the foxtrot, but that didn’t prevent the fourth and fifth graders at Public School 115 from mastering that dance in the 2005 documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom.” The film, by Marilyn Agrelo, chronicled the students’ preparations for a citywide dance contest, and a number of them will attend this free anniversary celebration, along with their instructors, the filmmakers and children currently enrolled in Dancing Classrooms, the program that taught ballroom techniques to the movie’s subjects. The event will include preshow dance lessons and demonstrations and a question-and-answer period afterward.

‘How Does Your Garden Grow?: Celebrating Pollinators’

The Bronx Zoo houses plenty of large animals, but this weekend it’s putting a special spotlight on some small ones: bees. As part of “How Does Your Garden Grow?,” a new display on the lawn outside the Butterfly Garden, the zoo will host “Pollinatorpalooza,” in which children will dress up as bees (and butterflies and hummingbirds) and learn the importance of these creatures in nature and farming. Part of a continuing program sponsored with the FarmOn! Foundation, an organization devoted to educating young people on healthy food choices, the event will include a game to act out the life cycle of a bee.

Family Field Day

Children are invited to have a field day — in all its meanings — at Brooklyn Bridge Park. At Pier 6, the park staff will provide equipment and guidance for all kinds of outdoor sports and activities, from old-fashioned games, like potato-sack races and freeze tag, to volleyball, basketball and soccer.

Summer Family Day at the Morris-Jumel Mansion

Children would have to agree that the Morris-Jumel Mansion has a pretty cool history: At one point during the Revolutionary War it was Washington’s headquarters. At this free annual event, they can play at being colonists themselves, with 18th-century games, a history-related craft project and a tour of the house, built in 1765. The day, which takes place both indoors and outdoors, also offers multicultural fun: In conjunction with the house’s exhibition of the work of Yinka Shonibare, an artist with roots in England and Nigeria, it will offer a workshop in batik dyeing.

Brick Fest Live

The New York Hall of Science will become the New York Hall of Lego during this nine-day celebration. In addition to exhibiting all manner of objects made with Lego toy building bricks, the museum will invite the public to join the creative frenzy. The festival, which is sponsored not by Lego but by the company Learn With Bricks, will include opportunities to build mosaics and sculptures, to participate in a Brick Fest derby (featuring Lego cars designed and constructed by young visitors) and to play favorite Lego-related video games — all in the name of math, engineering and technology education.

SummerStage Kids Family Day

This family day is also Father’s Day, and the music will reflect that happy occasion. This free concert, presented by the City Parks Foundation with the support of Disney, will feature the celebrated children’s pop star Laurie Berkner, who will salute fathers with her song “Dear Dad,” to be performed by a special guest, Mike Messer of the Dirty Sock Funtime Band. Ms. Berkner, who will also honor fathers in another of her tunes, “My Family,” will sing tracks from her most recent album, “The Ultimate Laurie Berkner Band Collection.” The Afro-Caribbean ensemble Something Positive and the Brooklyn United Marching Band will round out the program.

NYC KidsFest

This annual free celebration gathers arts and crafts, storytellers and children’s theater, and musical and dance groups all under one roof: the open sky. This year the highlights include Mr. Aubrey’s Show Kids, young dancers trained by Aubrey Lynch II; the pop band AJR; Karen A.’s Zumba Experience, a chance to frolic and be fit; and Galli Theater’s full production of “Little Red Riding Hood,” in which young audience members can become part of the play.

Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun

Just as New Yorkers are welcoming the longest day of the year, the people of the Andes are celebrating the shortest — because after that, things just get better. Inti Raymi, a festival enjoyed in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, heralds the winter solstice and the sunshine and plantings that are to follow. The National Museum of the American Indian will join the revelry with free festivities that include an opening ceremony, the presentation of an altar and interactive performances of music and dance by the Kichwa Nation of Ecuador and other groups.

Field Station: Dinosaurs

Just as a Tyrannosaurus rex, velociraptors and other prehistoric creatures have thundered into movie theaters, they’re heading out of New Jersey. Field Station: Dinosaurs, the 20-acre theme park filled with more than 30 animatronic species — including a T. rex, a stegosaurus and a 90-foot-long Argentinosaurus — is losing its Secaucus home and is looking for another site. But the dinosaurs, which move when approached, are in residence for one final summer, and there’s still time to catch the attractions, which include a three-quarter-mile trail with other paleontology exhibits; a movie, “Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet 3D”; and Paleontologists’ Laboratory, a recent addition that allows young visitors to dig for fossils and take home a small bag of genuine artifacts.

Children’s Theater Company

Henry Brown was an American slave who devised an unusual route to freedom: the United States mail. In 1849 he hid in a dry-goods crate and had himself shipped to abolitionists in Philadelphia. The Children’s Theater Company, this time working with adult casts, has adapted his story into “Henry ‘Box’ Brown,” a musical infused with gospel and R&B. It’s being performed with another short show, “King Kunka Bunka and the Rotten Royal Rascals,” which is written in Seuss-style rhyme and centers on a widowed Russian monarch’s search for an heir.

SummerStage Kids Family Day

Roots music can be delightfully tangled, with sundry traditions entwining and overlapping. Witness the program at this free event, presented by the City Parks Foundation with the support of Disney. The Ebony Hillbillies, a string band, explore the byways connecting bluegrass, rockabilly, jazz and blues, while the Martha Redbone Roots Project celebrates Ms. Redbone’s combined Native American and African-American heritages. Children are sure to be dancing.

ABTKids

When children watch ballet, often only the dancers are in step with the story. American Ballet Theater’s ABTKids programs show young people  just what all that tiptoeing around is about. This performance will present highlights from the company’s spring season, including excerpts from “Les Sylphides,” “Giselle,” “Rodeo” and the new production of “The Sleeping Beauty.” A V.I.P. ticket includes an onstage meeting with dancers, a gift bag and a post-performance dance workshop.

‘A Buck Is a Book’

Lots of people like to collect money, but not for the same reasons as Harley J. Spiller: He prizes cash that’s quirky. Mr. Spiller, a.k.a. Inspector Collector, will visit Bank Street Bookstore with anecdotes from his new book, “Keep the Change: A Collector’s Tales of Lucky Pennies, Counterfeit C-Notes, and Other Curious Currency” (Princeton Architectural Press). Children at this free event can inspect bills under ultraviolet light, handle rare pieces of money, design their own cash and even learn unusual facts about ordinary currency: Who knew that pennies planted in a garden could repel slugs?

‘Whimsical Puppetry Wonders’

Yiddish theater has survived for over 100 years, and in this drop-in workshop at the Jewish Museum, a new generation can bring its characters to life. The event, part of KulturfestNYC, a citywide celebration of Jewish performing arts, will acquaint children ages 4 to 10 with classic stories from the Yiddish stage. Presented with the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, the workshop will lead young participants in creating puppets from clay, fabric, wire, found objects and paint and then performing with them on a mini-stage.

National Dance Institute’s Signature Event of the Year

This time the institute’s signature event features what can only be called signature music: what America has been playing for decades, from California to the New York island. Called “This Land Is Our Land: The Power of American Song,” the program includes spirituals, bluegrass, rock and roll and more. It will be danced to by the more than 200 children participating in the institute, a nonprofit that brings arts programs to public schools.

Summer in the Square

That’s Union Square Park in Manhattan, which has more than playgrounds and lush grass to lure children each summer. This free Thursday series from the Union Square Partnership offers family activities and entertainment through Aug. 13. It includes Yoga Story Time, from the yoga studio Karma Kids; a concert or show (this opening week it’s Kidville’s “Rockin’ Railroad” program, for children 5 and under); story time with the Strand Bookstore; and exercise with the 14th Street Y and Pop Fit Kids. And a Children’s Activity Pavilion, with crafts, books and games, is open all day. 

‘Jack and the Beanstalk’

Many plants grow in Central Park, so why not a beanstalk? This one sprouts indoors at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater, which has revived Michael Alogna’s adaptation of the classic fairy tale about Jack, the Giant (here named Milford), Dolly the Cow and the famous Golden Goose. Bruce Cannon, the theater’s artistic director, has revised the script, and a human actor will now star in the show along with the company’s hand-built marionettes.

Stories at the Statue of Hans Christian Andersen

Not everything that blooms perennially in Central Park is a flower or a tree. Storytelling also returns there each summer, as the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the Central Park Conservancy and the Hans Christian Andersen Storytelling Center bring narrative performers to Andersen’s statue every Saturday. The free series, for ages 6 and older, starts this Saturday with Laura Simms and Anne Shimojima telling tales from Haiti and Japan.

‘Frolic!’ at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan

You’re never too young to rock — and this space proves it. A new pop-up installation opening on Friday at the museum, “Frolic!” uses rock music and a themed décor to stimulate sensory play and learning in visitors ages 5 and under. In addition to a stage, a pretend ticket booth and ’70s-style props, the 1,500-square-foot area has an interactive video music wall, a music mixer and programs of daily workshops and live performances — including concerts by Jon Samson at 11 a.m. and noon on June 6 — to help little ones get into the groove.

‘Things That Go Bang!’

The Lolli-Pops concerts from the Little Orchestra Society, for children as young as 3, use friendly characters like Bang, Bow, Buzz and Toot to introduce music. This particular program, which the orchestra is offering in Queens for the first time, is Bang’s favorite: It’s all about percussion. In addition to hearing Bizet, Britten, Gershwin and others, little listeners at this free event will learn that percussion instruments can be discovered almost anywhere (including the kitchen, but they knew that already).

‘Tiny Giants’

The heroes of this film may be small, but they’re mighty in their will to survive. Inspired by the BBC television series “Hidden Kingdoms,” this new Imax movie at the American Museum of Natural History uses 3-D cameras to peer into the universes of two diminutive creatures: a forest chipmunk and a grasshopper mouse from the Arizona desert, noted for its ability to prey on scorpions. Narrated by Stephen Fry, the film allows viewers to see the world from their perspectives.

Mad. Sq. Kids

The kids attending won’t have to worry about being mad or square: The entertainment is fun and hip in this summer series of free weekly hourlong concerts in Madison Square Park. This week’s performer is Audra Rox, a Brooklyn mom and bandleader who rocks indeed.

‘Shaping Wearable Art’

Clothing is functional, but it’s also art — hence the endless expressiveness of fashion. Children will explore this concept at the Bard Graduate Center, which is hosting this Family Day in conjunction with its exhibition “Fashioning the Body: An Intimate History of the Silhouette.” But while the show deals with historical attempts to reconfigure the body with articles like corsets and bustles, the workshop, led by Misha McGlown, will help young visitors use their imaginations to shape what they’d like to wear. After touring the exhibits, they’ll cut and collage patterns for pins, pendants and other jewelry. (The day includes gallery admission and nutritious snacks.)

Discovery Day at the Lucy Moses School

You never know whether you’ll like something until you try it, and sampling is the word of the day in this free annual event at the Lucy Moses School, the community arts school at the Kaufman Music Center. Children 4 and older are invited to try out musical instruments, including violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone, piano and trumpet. This open house will also offer performances by the school’s students and a chance for visitors to take a sample 20-minute Dalcroze eurhythmics class, in which they will explore musical concepts through movement and song.

Ezra Jack Keats Family Concert: ‘Creole for Kidz!’

Evocative words and images — and a groundbreaking diversity in characters — were the stock in trade of the children’s author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983), and this free annual event, part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival, adds another element: music. The band will be the Grammy-winning Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience, whose leader, Mr. Simien, has traveled the country with his program “Creole for Kidz & the History of Zydeco.” In addition to offering children an introduction to this Louisiana roots music, the event will feature Dan Zanes, another star of children’s entertainment, reading from Keats’s books.

‘Carnival of the Animals’

Young audience members can participate in a forest adventure in this program, part of the Once Upon a Ballet series from New York Theater Ballet. In “Carnival of the Animals,” choreographed by Beth Storey Taylor, a pair of lost children stumble on a magical forest where Queen Diana and her shaggy lion preside over a kingdom of creatures. The piece will be accompanied by “Game Two,” choreographed by Matthew Neenan, and by an interactive workshop in which children can try a few dance steps themselves.

‘Salute to Magic’

This is no simple affair of card and rope tricks. John Graham specializes in mixing magic with comedy, and Jason Bishop is known for his stage illusions, including levitation. They’re the stars of this 106th annual event, presented by the Society of American Magicians.

Global Family Reunion

See that guy sitting next to you on the bus? He’s your cousin. O.K, a distant cousin, but related to you all the same. This festival, at the New York Hall of Science and on its grounds, explores why and how that’s true with exhibits, activities and talks devoted to genealogy, anthropology and building family trees. Fun for children will include a family-themed scavenger hunt, the Worldwide Family Contest (tallest, youngest and so on), a chance to be part of the World’s Biggest Family Photo and a special kids’ section with face painting, soccer and magic shows. Many bands will provide live entertainment, among them Sister Sledge, which will lead the crowd in a huge singalong of — what else? — “We Are Family.”

Films at Lincoln Center

Pee-wee Herman and Batman don’t seem like kindred spirits. But they do have a few things in common: Both were in movies directed by Tim Burton, with scores by Danny Elfman. And features devoted to both of them will be shown in the David Rubenstein Atrium this weekend as a prelude to the Lincoln Center Festival in July, whose opening will highlight the Burton-Elfman partnership. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985), which starts with a stolen bicycle and soon leads to all manner of madcap doings, screens on Friday; “Batman” (1989), which stars Michael Keaton as the caped crusader, follows on Saturday. Perhaps best of all, both are free.

Frolic: Discovery Garden Opening Festival

Butterflies won’t just soar at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Saturday; they will also dance, parade and walk on stilts. The unusual means of locomotion come courtesy of Frolic, a festival to celebrate the opening of the garden’s new Discovery Garden for Children, a space with meadow, marsh and woodland habitats. The festivities — all free, as is garden admission all day — begin at the main garden’s Cherry Esplanade, where the artist and puppeteer Ralph Lee will have giant puppets from his Mettawee River Theater Company leading a Winged Rumpus; stilt walking and dancing creatures will be part of the fun. Children can follow a sonic scavenger hunt of global music on their way to the new Discovery Garden. Other activities will include nature walks, making bug antennas and building a giant scrap-sculpture dragonfly with the artist Javaka Steptoe.

Teens Take the Met!

This isn’t a youthful sit-in, but it is a youthful art-in. In this twice-a-year program, the Metropolitan Museum of Art turns over its galleries — free of charge — for three hours to all teenage visitors with a middle school or high school ID. The plans, formulated with more than 40 cultural and youth organizations, include opportunities to create art, write plays, make music and conduct gallery talks, not to mention meet friends, eat snacks and join in a giant dance party.

Sunset EcoCruises to the Harbor Heron Islands

Herons, egrets and ibises are New Yorkers, too, and about 3,000 reside on the islands around the city harbor. This series of Sunday cruises from New York City Audubon visits the birds’ lairs and provides binoculars for close-up viewing. Gabriel Willow, a naturalist and storyteller, narrates the adventures, conducted via New York Water Taxi. This weekend’s trip, the first of the summer, heads to the Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, where you can expect to see snowy egrets, little blue herons and many other species.

Carnival & Science Spectacular

What do carnivals have to do with science? The Staten Island Children’s Museum investigates the connections at this annual event, which includes robotics demonstrations, Lego engineering, a solar-powered racecar and clowning devoted to the science of the circus. And, of course, all those physics expressed in amusement park rides. Among the new attractions this year are the NY Insect Zoo, farm animals and the “Fire and Ice Show” from the organization Mad Science.