The Suffolk County Farm and Education Center in Yaphank holds its yearly Pumpkin Catapult Contest, aka the Pumpkin Fling, on Saturday, October 27. You build a catapult, fling a pumpkin and vie for prizes. Click here for more information, entry forms and “acknowledgement of risk” forms.

Who knew there was a website dedicated entirely to listing haunted houses, spooky walks, haunted hayrides and other Halloween events? With the scare-factor rated by readers. Aptly titled http://www.lihauntedhouses.com/

A very unscary Halloween for the younger set. Long Island Children’s Museum’s Ghostly Gala.

Show off your costumes, collect candy around the museum, face painting, decorate a goody bag, create a glow-in-the-dark spider and more. $7 per person, an extra $3 for the bat show, whatever that is!

A glorious Fall day like today calls for a nice walk before dinner…

If you are headed to the Fall festival in Long Beach, take the time to head to the boardwalk, which runs for about 2 miles along white sandy beaches. There is a beach-side park on Magnolia Blvd. – just a couple of blocks west from the festival. Loop back east on the boardwalk until you are done taking in the ocean air, and come back down to Park Ave. to eat dinner at Gino’s before heading home. Gino’s is super for families – good food and loud enough that no one will mind when your toddler bursts into song.

Or head north on Magnolia down to the bay, where there is a short boardwalk on that side of the island. Incidentally, Magnolia on the bay is where you can find the Long Beach Ice Arena – where you can rent skates for the whole family and grab a hot dog.

In Suffolk County – maybe try the South Shore Nature Center. (631) 224-5436, 50 Irish Lane, East Islip. There is a 2.5-mile network of trails, half of which are wheelchair-accessible boardwalks (read stroller friendly. They wind through upland woods, then wetland woods, followed by freshwater pond and marsh, and finally saltwater marsh. Nice place to take in Fall foliage.

There is a pervasive notion nowadays about  the dangers of overscheduling – but no guidelines as to what that means exactly. In a region like ours, with access to many high-quality classes and programs, how much is too much in terms of activities for children? Leave your comments here.

Take, for example, a child who is in preschool part-time – maybe 2 or 3 half days a week. Would 5 activities – one for each of the other days – be too much? Many parents would say it sounds like a lot – but is it?

With the winter looming, and fewer opportunities to go to the beach or the park, what are the alternatives? Staying inside, kids bouncing off the walls, snapping on the TV for a Dora marathon? There are only so many playgroups, and many moms end up isolated at home.

The guidelines from the medical community are vague. There are no clear-cut answers in this article, published earlier this year in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.The article acknowledges that research shows that activities benefit children, but that free play time must be protected.  It then steers clear of actual guidelines:

“It is clear that organized activities have a developmental benefit for children, especially in contrast to completely unsupervised time. Some research substantiates that for most children, benefits increase with higher levels of participation…It is less clear, however, at what point a young person may be “overscheduled” to their developmental detriment or emotional distress. Free child-driven play known to benefit children is decreased, and the downtime that allows parents and children some of the most productive time for interaction is at a premium when schedules become highly packed with adult-supervised or adult-driven activities.”

So – with many of us considering how to get through the long winter – how much is too much? Another study shows how activities benefit children – and the more the better –  and its findings suggest that overscheduling fears are perhaps overblown.

At what point is a child robbed of the benefits of free play? Is there a danger that some parents might take these vague warnings too much to heart, and do less with their children? Or that funding to after-school programs would be cut given controversies around kids being pushed too hard? Denying children of the benefits of “getting out there” and socializing with other children and learning news skills? Leaving them in front of the TV for long stretches instead?

Full disclosure: I’m a mom who may be considered by some to be an overscheduler. On the 4 days a week when my 3-year-old daughter does not go to nursery school, we do at least one activity a day, including swimming lessons, ice skating, gymnastics, dance and French classes. These take anywhere from 1-3 hours out of our day, and my daughter still has plenty of time at home, where she likes to do art projects, play with her dolls and cook dinner alongside Mommy.

“A Christmas Carol” comes alive in Port Jeff the weekend of November 30 – December 2.

Among the activities:

“In celebration, the Port Jefferson Dickens Festival beckons to one and all with the Yuletide tradition of High Tea, complete with gorgeous live music, at the First Presbyterian Church.” See the site here Check out the costumes you can rent from Antique Costume and Prop Rental by Nan Guzzetta

Old Westbury Gardens holds a Children’s Clay Workshop – with ceramic artists from New Orleans. Saturday, Oct. 20. 10:30 am. 516 333 0048.

A costume parade, pumpkin patch, crafts, a haunted house and rides are all set up at Kennedy Plaza in front of Long Beach City Hall at the town’s annual Fall Festival. October 20-21.

Children 12 and under can fish for trout at Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Acquarium’s Fall fair. All fishing equipment is provided.  Also games, food and refreshments and education on conservation and environment. Saturday, October 13. 10 am – 4:30 pm.

An ice-show version of High School Musical comes to Nassau Coliseum Nov. 13-18.

Click here to buy tickets.