Some all-star events are happening at the Scotiabank Centre this weekend. Spoiler alert, the stars will be: Globetrotters, …on Ice, and Canadian National Anthem singers. Also, Princesses and Superheroes plan to take over the World Trade and Convention Centre, and Dancers will be shimmying all over Halifax Central Library!

1. The basketball team that has been shooting unbelievable (but true) hoops for almost a century is coming to Scotiabank Centre this Saturday at noon! The Harlem Globetrotters will have you and your family highly amused while watching the ball handling wizardry, basketball artistry, and one-of-a-kind family entertainment these tall men from Harlem are known for. Ticket starts at $16.
2. Rather your stars on ice? Then head to the Scotiabank Centre for 7:30 on Friday for Stars on Ice! Headlined by Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, and Patrick Chan, this frosted performance is sure to wow all ages. Tickets start at $25, $12.50 for kids 12 and under.
3. Prefer your children be the stars? The Princess Tea and Superhero Party for the Children’s Wish Foundation on Sunday is sure to pull that off. The World Trade and Convention Centre is rolling out the red carpet and having three seatings for the Tea Party (1:00, 2:30, and 3:45) and two for the Superhero Party (1:00 and 3:30). Tickets are $50 for princesses and $40 for superheroes, and include a show, a party, a snack, autographs, interactive entertainment, and free admission to the Family Connect Expo which opens at 12.
4. Auditions for singing the Canadian National Anthem before the Blue Nose Marathon are taking place at (of all places) the Scotiabank Centre on Sunday at 2. Spectators welcomed and encouraged to come and join in on the fun! Admission is free. Contestants can Register here.
5. Dance the entire International Dance Day away! For children 3-5, there’s a Creative Movement Class from 10:30-11:00, all ages are welcome to Test Drive a Tutu with Halifax Dance at 11:00, The Youth Dance Ensemble Dancers are performing at 1:00, and a Sharing Dance Day Rehearsal with Halifax Dance gets boogying at 2:00. All this dancing is getting down at the Halifax Central Library and everything is free.

1. Celebrate our Earth! Join the Ecology Action Centre and get positive about our planet! The focus this year is Earth Optimism, a global initiative that focuses on solutions and hope. At their new Fern Lane location, the EAC is offering free family friendly workshops from 10:30-12:30 on Saturday.

2. Clean up and reduce waste! Earth day starts with you. Be part of The Great Nova Scotia Pick Me Up, take the family, and join your nearest roadside clean-up. Whether you can make it out or not, don’t be afraid to take the initiative to stop using items commonly found on the side of the road: beverage cups, grocery bags, and diapers. These are all things that can be avoided in the first place. If you don’t already… drink from re-usable travel mugs and bottles, take your own basket to the grocery store when you’re going for a couple things, or diaper your baby in cloth… challenge yourself and your family to reduce and re-use as much as possible!

3. Fix it, don’t buy it! Use that bike again with Bike Again! This volunteer-run, DIY bike shop is having an Open House on Saturday from 1-5. Check out what a community bike garage looks like: they provide the space, tools, and some know-how; YOU do the work. Feel free to bring a bike that needs a tune up or bike parts that need new homes. Remember, fixing up a bike to pass down from one sibling to another is not only saving money, it’s a small act of environmentalism. You’ll also have a chance to check out the Radstorm Open House in the same building at 6050 Almon for screen printing, zines, art, music, and snacks! Bonus!

4. Geek out! Guess what else the Earth provided? Video games! Hah—technically, it’s true. If board and video games, cosplay, and comics are yours or kids’ things, Geequinox is the place to be. It’s a two-day event (Saturday 11-7 and Sunday 10-6) held at the Halifax Forum in the Multi-Purpose Centre. There will be guests and performances, panels, a Geeks vs Nerds debate, gaming, and vendors. There’s even a way for babies to participate on Sunday at 1:30, the Kid Costume Event age range starts at infant and ends at 12 years. Weekend passes are $15 and allow up to two children aged 5-12 to tag along. Anyone under 5 is free if they bring a paying supervising adult.

Happy Easter everyone! For peep’s sake your family deserves to see somebunny special, have an eggstravaganza, and take a sweet eggscape! Consider this Weekend Wrap-Up your guide to mall bunnies, egg hunts, and everything Easter.

1. The Easter Bunny will be hopping herself ragged for photo shoots at malls all around HRM. Catch the Bunny at Bedford Place Mall daily with the exception of Good Friday at various times until Saturday evening; enter Bunny Land at Mic Mac Mall in the afternoons until Saturday; listen to Bunny Tales at Sunnyside Mall at 11:30 preceding the bunny’s arrival at noon, daily until Saturday; and Hop into Halifax Shopping Centre on Thursday and Saturday. Expect to donate $5 to the SPCA for photo prints. Check out Urban Parent’s Calendar for a full list of times and locations. Such a busy bunny, it’s a wonder she doesn’t crack right up!

2. You don’t have to search hard to find egg hunts around here. There’s one in every burrow. In Hammonds Plains, Hatfield Farm has a 2 and ½ hour adventuresome egg hunt for $56/family on Saturday and Sunday starting at 10:30 and 1:30; in Down Town Dartmouth you can hop to your favourite shops to collect eggs on Saturday from 12-2; in Waverley, the Vegetorium is hosting an egg hunt with a wholesome twist at McDonald Sports Park on Saturday, it’s $5 in advance, $7 at the park; and in St. Margaret’s Bay, St. Luke’s United Church is having a free hunt on Rails to Trails on Saturday, email office@stlukesunited.ca to register.

3. Halifax Public Libraries never fail to keep up with the seasons and Easter is no exception. Find an egg near you…At the Cole Harbour location, there’s an Easter puppet show on Thursday at 10:30, Keshen Goodman is hosting a Preschool Egg Hunt on Saturday at 10, and Super Saturdays are about to get more super—this Saturday at 10:30, children of all ages are invited to grab their Easter baskets and Hop to it! As always, this fantastic Easter programing at the libraries is free, call it “Freaster,” if you will.

4. How about an overnight Egg-citing Easter adventure down the South Shore? Take a mini-family vaycay just outside the city at Oak Island’s Atlantica Resort! Packages start at $155.00 per night per a family of 4 and include breakfast for two adults and two children under 12, Easter themed arts and crafts, pool games for the whole family, a Cotton Tail Tea Party, the great Sunday Easter Egg Hunt, and much more! Email reservations@atlanticaoakisland.com to reserve and do it fast before all the rooms fill up!

All over Halifax and throughout Nova Scotia, there is nothing to do…April Fools! We have a ton of silly and fun delights for the whole family to partake in. So wake up on Saturday, pull a prank on a child, then get out there and get to some of the many events going on. The short list consists of Bubble Guppies to watch, yoyos to play with, and footballs to throw, a mishmash of fairy tales in North End Halifax and plenty of tea at the Forum. The long list is on the Urban Parent Calendar!

1. Bubble bubble. Guppy guppies. <clap clap> Bubble Guppies! Know that song? Always dreamed of seeing it live?? This Sunday you can because Molly, Gill, and all the other mertoddlers are Live and Ready to Rock at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 the day of show and will be available at the Dalhousie Arts Centre box office, by phone at (902) 494-3820, and online at Sonic Concerts.

2. Have you been to the oldest children’s bookstore in Canada? Well Woozles on Birmingham Street in Downtown Halifax is hosting a Yoyo Workshop, Introduction to Modern Yoyoing, on April Fool’s SaturDay, so there’s your chance! One of the world’s oldest toys has come a long way since 500 BC and capable of doing crazy tricks like the ‘Man on the Flying Trapeze’. The instructor, no foolin’, is an 11-year-old boy. The workshop is for ages 7 and up, $10 per person, and is filling up fast, so give the staff at Woozles a call at 902-423-7626 or email frontdesk@woozles.com as soon as you can!

3. The North West Arm Minor Football Association is hosting a Free Football Clinic for children aged 7-14 looking to be Rebels. Huddle up and see if tackle football is the right sport at the BMO Indoor Soccer Centre on Thomas Raddall Drive on Friday evening at 7. The Rebels’ football season is right around the corner!

4. Child’s Play Theatre presents their latest production for kids and families, The Storybook, written by Rebecca Babcock. Watch through the eyes of two modern kids, a pastiche of traditional European fairy tales complete with timeless silliness. The performance at the Bus Stop Theatre plays Friday evening at 6:30, Saturday and Sunday at 1, 3, and 6. Admission is $10, $5 for children under 12. Purchase tickets online at www.tickethalifax.com, reserve by emailing childsplaytheatregroup@gmail.com, or bring cash (only) to the door.

5. Get ready for a parTea and some hospitaliTea steeped by HumaniT at The Halifax Tea Festival! At the Halifax Forum Multipurpose Centre on Saturday from 10-5, tea merchants from all over the Maritimes will be serving up their best. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door will get you and your brewed access to not only plenty of tea, but workshops, art displays, food, and more!

1. Here in Halifax we love our burgers, so much so that we’ve carved out a whole week about to celebrate and fundraise via hamburger. From March 23-29 The Coast presents Halifax Burger Week. Almost 100 restaurants have created a unique burger special that exists for one week only and they’ll either be priced at $6 or if they’re more, part of the proceeds will be donated by the restaurant to Feed Nova Scotia. We have cross referenced participating Halifax Burger Week joints with restaurants where kids eat for free and we have three lovely spots to tell you about! True North Diner in Bedford Place Mall has a $6 Hogtown Beef Burger topped with pulled pork, Swiss cheese, red onion and coleslaw, kids 12 and under eat free on Mondays; Tempo Food and Drink at the Delta Barrington has a $12 Pizza Corner Burger, kids 6 and under eat free and those 7-12 are half price; and the affiliated Harbour City Bar and Grill in the Delta Halifax features a $10 spicy, bacon wrapped Meatloaf Burger and the same deal applies for the kids! Ahhh Burger Week, thank you for making it more affordable for Scotians to nom.

2. Take your Burger Week and raise yourself a live music matinee this Sunday! All four Freeman’s Little New York locations are serving up a mouth-watering $15 Chipotle Cranberry Cheddar Burger with a healthy $5 going towards Feed Nova Scotia. What’s more, two of their locations are serving up live music for a late lunch! What a great way to expose the kids (and, ahem, yourselves) to our local music scene! At 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, along with their renowned burgers, milkshakes, and of course, the pizza, Freeman’s presents Adam Cameron in Sackville and Joe Butcher on Quinpool.

3. If cheerleading is of interest to the kids, the Forum is the place to be this weekend for the 14^th Annual Cheer Expo National Championships. It’s a fantastic event offering entertainment, inspiration, and participation. You’re guaranteed a great show from cheerleaders from all over the country, it’s the ideal place to find out how to involve your girls and boys in local programs, turn all that “I want to be a princess” talk into something tangible! There are cheer classes offered throughout the weekend—a Watch & Learn Pass is $60 and grants access to all classes. Doors are at 8 and competitions start at 9 on both Saturday and Sunday. Day passes are $15, weekend passes are $25, kids 5 and under are free.

4. If it’s hounds, terriers, and mutts that the kids love, then walk them over to the Dartmouth Sportsplex for Doggie Expo 2017 on Sunday! The event goes from 10-3 and only $5 admission gets you access to so many vendors, from doggie wear to health care, prizes, AND if you have a dog of any breed and it is nice and uses a leash, it is welcome to walk with you to the Sportsplex!

5. Looking forward to April, there are some serious big ticket events you may want to plan for. The Bubble Guppies are Live! at the Rebecca Cohn on April 2^nd, The Harlem Globe Trotters will play an amazing and hilarious game of basketball on April 29^th at the Metro Centre, and a variety of Stars on Ice are coming to the Scotiabank Centre on April 28^th.