Village Green Park in Glen Ellyn

Place: Village Green Park
Location:  130 S. Lambert Road (south of Roosevelt Rd. and north of Butterfield Rd) in Glen Ellyn.
Type of Place: Park
Secret: There's a free splash park! Its small, but perfect for kids who can go back and forth, from the playground to the water, on hot summer days.
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

The latest playground I discovered was recommended to me by another blogger: Christine, who blogs at Kids Of DuPage. The playground there has the coolest jungle gym I have ever seen! Its shaped like a rocket ship (giving the park the nickname "Rocket Park") and has slides, stairs, bridges, and secret passages everywhere! Unfortunately, my camera died after fifteen minutes there, so I didn't get a ton of pictures. But this one pic may give you the general idea of how large and complicated the jungle gym is!

The next coolest thing is that there is also a small splash park! Its not huge like the other Glen Ellyn splash park where you have to pay $3.00 to get in, but it is still nice. Little kids simply enjoy it being water that they can run in and out of!
Here's Little Bear in last year's bathing suit, since her other two bathing suits were in the wash!

And same with Pufferfish! (We play in the water a lot...)

And now for the most important part... This place has nice, clean, indoor bathrooms! This is not only nice if you have kids like Pufferfish who constantly have to go potty, but it provides a place to change your kids' clothes if you want to put dry clothes on them before you head home.
We've already gone to Village Green Park several times this summer. I bring a lunch, and we can easily . spend five or six hours there! Its the perfect place to spend a lazy summer day

Atten Park In Wheaton

Place: Atten Park
Location:  1720 S. Wiesbrook in Wheaton
Type of Place: Park
Secret: You'll love the squishy padded ground, which is designed like a baseball field!
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

We got invited to a picnic at this park last week, and we were delighted to find an awesome new playground! This place has everything!
There is a really cool jungle gym wirh a ton of different climbing equipment!

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There is also a smaller tot lot for younger kids.

They loved playing restaurant in this little compartment.

Pufferfish and the other preschools adored this little see-saw, which just has a gentle bounce to it.

Of course they also both loved the swings! Pufferfish wanted a million underdogs! (This swing is one of those special swings for kids who can't hold their bodies up well in a regular swing, but Pufferfish loves to chill out in them. There are regular swings, and baby swings, as well!)

The large sand area is another favorite! It has diggers, and tunnels too!

I liked that the ground was very soft and squishy. It felt like the kids could fall from the sky, and they'd bounce! Of course thats probably not exactly true, but it is definitely very squishy! The ground is designed like a baseball field, which was very cute.



And the best part of all? The indoor bathrooms! Nice and clean, and a great "plus" for people who have kids with small bladders, or kids who are in various stages of potty training! There's a great picnic shelter too, so this is a place to keep in mind for playgroup get togethers and other events!

We're definitely adding this to our list of playgrounds to visit on a regular basis!

Lakeview Nature Center in Oakbrook Terrace

Place: Lakeview Nature Center
Location: . 17 W 063 Hodges Rd in Oakbrook Terrace.
Type of Place: Nature center
Secret: There's a shallow little creek that the kids enjoyed splashing around in. Sometimes we find snail shells there!
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

I found out about Lakeview Nature Center last summer, through the Passport To Adventure program. Its a great little nature center, with tons of ammenities that make it possible to spend an entire long summer day there!
During the summer, Lakeview has a weekly program called Wild Wednesdays. It starts out with a very nice, interactive storytime led by a volunteer at the nature center. Then, staff members give a presentation on a live animal. Kids get to view and touch the animal and learn interesting facts about it. Sometimes it is an animal that actually lives at the nature center, such as a frog or a chipmunk. Other times it is a more exotic animal brought in from somewhere else, such as a toucan! This past Wednesday the kids were introduced to centipedes and millipedes. And as it turns out, millipedes are not as creepy as I would have thought! (Centipedes, with their long feathery legs, still freak me out, though!)
Wild Wednesdays take place in rainy or sunny weather. This week it was rainy in the morning, so the event was inside the nature center. That was nice, because they have a great playroom, and the kids all played for a long time after the presentation! There are also many small animals, fish, insects and reptiles, on display in the nature center for kids to look at.
But on sunny days, there are even more festivities, such as lemonade and popcorn being sold, free fishing, and $3.00 paddle boat rides!
Last week, in order to get our passport stamps, we had to go on a hike/scavenger hunt. Since it was sunny by then, we hiked over to the creek, where the kids enjoyed wading around. I am not actually sure you are supposed to do this, but I couldn't see why not... there weren't any "No Swimming" signs posted, and the water only went up about halfway to the kids' knees anyways! I'm a pretty strong believer in giving kids the freedom to enjoy nature, the way I got hill to do when I was little. It seems like, often, these days people are like, "We want you kids to appreciate nature, so look at it... but do not touch it! Don't climb the tree, don't walk on the fallen branch, don't pick up the frog, don't stand on the rock, don't roll down the hill, and DON'T PUT YOUR FEET IN THE WATER!" To me, I want them to be able to do all that. And if you watch the slide show at the bottom of this post, you'll see how genuinely happy the kids ar e to be outside in nature... even though we could hear the sounds of the highway in the background!
Anyway. Lakeview also has a nature-themed playground! After getting our passports stamped and collecting our prizes for doing the hike  (which Little Bear, Rafael and Pufferfish all immediately lost) we headed to the playground They love the playground there, especially the rotating net. Its like a regular merry-go-round, but it is surrounded by a rope net that kids can climb on as they spin! What a thrill!
I had a lot of pictures this time, so I decided to put them into a slide show so you can see how much we enjoyed Lakeview Nature Center.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com