playgrounds and fun!
This park is located in Middletown, and is not too far away from Lyman Orchards. So it is about half an hour drive from new haven.
It is a beautiful park for hiking, and for picking leaves in the fall.
It also has a waterfall. There is also a strange beach area. I think in the summer time, the rain accumulates into a swimming hole, in which we even found tadpoles. But the rest of the time it was just a giant sand box.
It is a very quiet park and usually only has a few people in the entire park. It’s located on Whitney avenue, almost cross the street from the hike entrance of the Easter Rock trial. It’s a quiet paradise that’s still so close to the city.
We first heard of the park in 2007, when my friend kindly gave us his ownership of a patch of land in the community garden. At the rear entrance of the park, there is half an acre land of community garden. So people living in apartments could still enjoy planting something and watching it grow. People plant amazing things there. Giant sunflowers that were 10-feet tall, beautiful flowers that I don’t know the names. And of course vegetables, like tomatoes, squashes, pumpkins. We rented the garden for two years till we moved farther away from the area.
If you go in from the rear entrance, you will pass the garden, then just lawns and trees. When you find your way towards the front entrance, you will see this humongous grass area with a long hill. It’s so large that it makes you feel so small.
Stamford Museum and Nature Center locates in Stamford, so it is a big of a drive, like 45 minutes from new haven without traffic. But it is such a fun place to spend a day with the kids. The admission is very affordable (adult $10, 4-17 yrs $5 as for 2017) and it is totally worth the price for a whole day of fun.
When you get in, you will first be amazed by what a giant park it is. You’ll first see the beautiful lake on the left side with ducks, geese and swans. On the right side, up the stairs, there is a giant castle, that used to belong to someone rich and now is a museum and kids can do crafting in it.
Keep walking down in the park, you will see some friendly otters, who really enjoys their meal time. Make a left turn, you might see turkey/chicken/unknown animal running around, away from the chasing kids. There are all softs of farm animals, pigs, goats, cows. Up on the hill, there are also horses!
In addition to the farm animals, there is also a vegetable garden and an indoor museum for snakes, frogs and turtles. The people who work there are super friendly. My 5 yrs asked so many questions and got so much fun!
And there is more. If you walked straight after the lake, you will arrive at the one of the kind playground. It is mostly made of wood, and in the original wooden color. It takes advantage of being built on a hill and arranges in four levels! The top level has a big ‘bird nest’ for adventurous kids to go in and use it as a watch tower. The second level connects to a tower that goes up to the first level, and some slides to naturally go down to the third level, which is the ground level. Then below the ground level, hidden behind, there is a giant pirate ship! The playground is such a unique design and also so much fun.
There is also a hiking trial around the area of the convenient store and playground. You can enjoy the quiet time listening to the little brook throughout the woods.
The center is like a combination of zoo, park and awesome playground. A great place to spend a day!
We were in Boston and looking for things to do. Then I found this unique playground, probably the most unique I have ever seen, the Esplanade Playplace. If you happened to be in Boston, go check it out!
The only trick is that it was a pain to find parking. The playground is along the side of Charles river, so it would be very convenient for residents to walk by, but a pain for out-of-towners to drive in. It is sort of close to Boston Common and the government and commercial center, probably a 10-15 minutes walk most, and there are plenty of parking there (for a fee or free). But we are dragging two small kids, so I decided to try to park nearby in the neighborhood. The parking signs were confusing. Some meters said not to park, but I saw many cars parked under. Finally we found one available meter not too far away. Then you would have to walk to a bridge that goes over the traffic to the river side. Then you are there!
I was stun when I got there. It has a gigantic climbing structure composed by only ropes! My 5 yrs immediately went in the middle of the rope puzzle and started climbing. But it seemed like he wasn’t big enough to go up! Then he saw another kid climbing from the side, which would be the same idea as climbing a ladder! This time he quickly got up! Then you slide down on a tunnel slide to get back for another run. Eventually my 5 yrs learned how to climb up from the middle. My 3 yrs’s legs were not long enough to do so, but had no problem climbing up from the side. There was also a little hammock connected to the climbing structure, perfect for babies.
Then the playground has a zipline! We only had ziplines in paid activity center. And this is completely free! (Discounting the fact that you need to drive to Boston and find parking around there) The zipline is not far above from the ground, from 0.5 to 2 feet probably. It has a sturdy rubber rod to hold on and a rubber seat to sit on. You start from the 2-feet high platform, and then go zip! down to the end which is about 0.5 feet.
It has a rock climbing wall on a fake mountain. It has a swing that can take a couple kids. Although most kids don’t like to share the comfy swing. It also has a spinning plate that holds a few kids.
The day we went was right before July 4th, and we later heard that that was where they have fireworks at night! There is a little cart nearby with drinking water, but I’m not sure whether it is there just for the festival. If you are tired of the playground, go over to the river side and look at the beautiful Charles river and enjoy the wonderful breeze.
I love this playground. It truly made me think how we could design play elements that are both innovative and fun.
The Lighthouse Park locates at the end of the stream of parks, following East Shore Park, Fort Hale Park and Seawall Park. It is a New Haven city park, so if you are not a new haven resident and want to come between memorial day and labor day during the day, you’ll have to pay to drive in. (It will still be free if you take the bus, or bike, or walk to go in.)
It has large areas of green for any space-required activities, and it has many picnic tables and a lot of them are under the shade. It has a long beach-line, very peaceful during the off-season.
It has a medium-sized playground on the sand that features a large play-set for 5-12 yrs and a small play-set for 2-5 yrs.
You can swim in the ocean. There is a safeguard in the summer. You can walk on the jetty out to the ocean. You can pick some snails, or hermit crabs. It’s also a perfect place for watching sunset. It has a large sprinkler park! In the hot hot summer day, what’s better than cooling off in the cold sprinkler!
Over the weekends during the summer, it also has a fancy indoor carousel for 75 cents a ride! (But it only runs every half an hour from 12 to 4 on weekends last time I heard in 2016).
There are also stores open in the summer selling food drink and ice cream! I have seen many families spending the entire day in the park, grilling, swimming, playing, resting and have a all-day fun!
Over the summer it has regular bathrooms. Otherwise it may have potter-potty. The playground is not under the shade.
The Veterans Memorial Park in Bethany is beautiful, peaceful and fun. It is a little out of the way from new haven, taking us almost half an hour drive. But it is worth the drive when you want to take the kids out for a safe summer swim! (And it is free!)
We first heard of the park because one of our friends had a birthday party there. The party was great. The food and decorations were awesome. The playground was big and had everything. After the party, you could jump in the lake and have a real swim!
When you first arrive the park, you would see this beautiful lake. It is a quite large lake, surrounded by a trail that has a little bridge. We haven’t gone on the trail, but we have seen a few times that a horseman walking on the trail gracefully.
Next to the parking lot, there is a tennis field, a pavilion, and a playground. The playground has a fun fishing-bone stairs to climb on, and a spiral slide. It also has a small rock climbing wall, and plenty of place to run on and off. There is a big spinning plate that can make 10 kids screen. There is a smaller play-set for smaller kids, a decent-sized sand-box. Two baby swings and two flat-bottom swings. It also has a rocking crocodile between the slides and the play-set.
Next to the playground, there is a large soccer field. Then it comes the swimming area! During the summer time maybe over the weekend, there are even life guards there. The deepest water inside of the swimming area is probably 3 feet. So my 5-yr-old can mostly tip-toe most of the way. (It would be a great way to persuade him to take the swimmie off and learn real swimming!)
Also, adults could swim outside of the swimming area, on your own risk of course. My husband and I have done it a few times. It is just so nice and so rare to be able to swim in the nature.
What’s more fun is that the park seems to have some animal residents as well. A herd of geese always swim around the lake or pecking around the fields. They are NOT afraid of humans. Actually we told the kids not to mess with the obvious baby-geese who were protected by the parent-geese.
If you go in the water, you’ll happily encounter some fish. They once even gave my husband a small pinch. All the kids LOVE to see the fish.
Even sometimes with a birthday party, so maybe the playground and pavilion can be a bit loud, since the majority of the space in the park is the lake and the soccer field, the whole park still feels very peaceful. It is a little paradise that isn’t known by many.
I heard of the playground from Out and About Mom. Then my next door neighbor mentioned it to us too.
The playground is conveniently located next to the Hamden Library. They share the same parking lot. (The first we went, it took me some turning around to realize that.)
Right in front of the playground are two giraffes. My kids love to ride on them! Although they could be very hot during the summer. The playground is completely fenced-in, and looks brand new as of our last visit in the spring of 2017. It is like a giant maze, with many intertwining paths, and has slides, tunnels, climbing ladders, towers. Sometimes I have trouble locating my kids! It is a perfect place for toddlers who just learned how to walk, because there are walls along the path that kids could hold on to. Big kids enjoy it too because they could play hide-and-seek.
The playground has very little shade. It is inside of a large park that has lots of green. You can easily do a picnic under a tree in the park.
I want to give my very first blog to the Ansonia Nature Center. We got to know this place in 2016 and we felt in love with it. Even though it’s not in the city of new haven, the drive to ansonia probably takes less than 20 minutes for most areas in new haven.
It has an awesome playground. It was built in 2016, and renovated in 2017 (in which they removed the cool hill slide). The playground is mostly made of wood, like a rise-up platform with wooden bridges connecting little chambers. It has a median sized tunnel slide, a cool spinning plate that can hold 5-6 kids, a sandbox, a tire swing. Kids from toddler to maybe 8 would have great fun here. It has several picnic tables and rows of benches to sit on. The only downside of the playground might be that the sandbox is the only place that is in the shade.
Although not being in the shade is not a problem for the center, because it has a whole building for playing inside! The nature center itself as a full bathroom, which is such a plus for some pregnant moms who are not fans of porta potties. The center has several resident animals, a very cool-looking owl, a bunny, a genie pig, a bird, several snakes, turtles, fish, bees (in a safe hive) etc. Kids can just walk in (during the center hours) and admire the animals. The center also has a play room with stuffed animals, a puppet show frame, and X-ray pictures, an activity room with books and crafts. All the stuff, unless they are reserved for some events, you can just walk in and play!
Let’s go back to the outside again. There is a little pond near the building, and once we saw many lazy turtles bathing under the sun. There is also a soccer field right next to the playground, which brought great entertainment for my kids’ birthday party in the pavilion right next to the field. (I was first disappointed that we couldn’t use the field, then I found out that the little kids rather watching the big kids play soccer).
And all the fun is free! (except the birthday parties). What’s more, the center does a lot of kids activities throughout the year. It even has a summer camp. You should really check out the website, which is constantly updated with new activities. And the website itself is very respectable in the modern tech world.
I just realized I never really took good pictures of the playground itself. So I’ll come back with some pictures.
The Basset Park is located a little bit deeper in Hamden, maybe a 10-15 minutes drive from new haven. I stumbled upon the park when I got lost on the way to the Rascals Gym to pick up my daughter. Then I saw this beautiful playground right next to the road. Then I started bring my daughter over after her camp for a picnic lunch in the park.
The playground is right next to the parking lot and right next to the street. The playground is really big, and stretched in a long way. It has a sandbox with many toys. Then it has a play-set for kids to climb and grab. It has a spinning rod. It also has a gazebo for sitting in.
Then you walk a few steps to go to the playground that is under the shade. Spread out over on the right side of the playground, it has 2 regular swings, 2 baby swings, and 1 tire swing. It has a low-monkey bar for toddler’s size.
I didn’t see the water fountain. But since I have only been there a couple times I could be wrong. Half of the playground is under the shade.
New Haven Kids! 