If there was one place in the world that my daughter would name as her favorite, it would probably be… no, not home… not the library… the park! We have been taking her to the park since she was a month old. We are lucky to live in a place with gorgeous weather year-long, and we take full advantage of that by spending a lot of time outdoors. Over the summer, we decided to visit a new park every week! Some of our favorite parks are Coyote Point Park, San Mateo; Magical Bridges Park, Palo Alto; Washington Park, Sunnyvale; and gosh, the list is endless! But on most days, you’ll find us at our neighborhood playground, Sylvan Park, Mountain View.

The park has proven to be a wonderful place of learning and fun for us. We can spend hours there, playing in the play area, practicing crawling and then walking, or just chilling out on the grass with books and toys. Through the summer, we had countless picnics at the park. She would get excited by the dogs and squirrels and birds and more. The number of things to do was seemingly endless!

Here’s a list of activities we have done at the park, along with the age at which we did them. All these activities promote sensory development and should be a part of a healthy sensory diet.

1. Walks: This may seem elementary, but seriously… walks. And I don’t mean making the kid walk, necessarily. We started taking walks to the park with her when she was about a month old and I was ready to go out again. The park was a wonderful source of fresh air, especially since we were having a very hot summer last year when she was born. We would take her in the stroller, and she would sometimes sleep, occasionally gaze out. Sometimes, when she was awake, we would sit at the playground watching the bigger kids play, showing her all that she would play with one day.
2. The infant swing: The infant swing, with the inserts for tiny infant legs and a bar to prevent the tender child from falling, is one of the safest first plays for a baby. A rode the swing at just under 4 months, when we were confident her neck had gained strength and was stable (Please ensure of this!). The swing helps them gain a sense of movement, and best of all, helped her sleep!
3. The sights: Another seemingly trivial activity, but one that I can see she has learnt a lot from. When she was really little, my mom would walk her around showing her all the things to play with as she would grow up. Later, she watched animals. Her latest favorite is watching planes flying over the park!
4. The slide: This certainly came later, at about 6 months. Of course, this was more of us holding her and moving her down the slide ourselves and her actually sliding down at that age. While she was a little apprehensive at first, she slowly started loving it and it helped develop her vestibular system / her sense of movement. By her first birthday, she had learnt to come down the slide herself!
5. Climbing up steps and ladders: The steps at the park were a little lower than the ones at our home. The crawlers and walkers both develop a good sense of height and distance as they navigate the steps at various levels.
6. Crawling all over: Out playground has an area with a relatively soft floor where kids can comfortably crawl. That apart, our slide structure had a fairly secure area where she could crawl back and forth. This fostered a sense of independence in her, and she would proudly traverse the slide structure herself.
7. Climbing up slide: And by climbing up the slide I mean going from down to up on the slide, not the steps. This is great exercise for the knees and hands, and again develops their sense of height.
8. Walking: Children learn a lot by imitating, especially each other. The park is a great place to practice walking, especially on different surfaces. The softer child-safe ground with slightly higher friction, the grass, the regular sidewalks… the possibilities are endless!
9. Playing on lawn: This was a summertime favorite of ours, to spread a blanket on the grass, have a picnic and just lay and play. The grass is a wonderful exploratorium for kids, as they dig through the grass discovering plants and leaves and flowers. Of course, it is messy and make sure they don’t eat what they find! You could give your kid a basket and have them collect leaves, twigs and pebbles as an activity.
10. Playing in sand: This is her latest, and the one about which I was most apprehensive since she still prefers to explore with her mouth. Playing in the sand is wonderful sensory play, but I wasn’t comfortable adding sand in her diet While playing in the sand, she learns to scoop up small amounts of sand in her shovel and dump it in her bucket, fill up her bucket and dump it out, among other things.

These are just some of the things we’ve done at the park, but the rest is for another post. As the colder months approach, the time we spend at the park is reducing but we aren’t giving up yet! Instead of going in the evenings, we spend our mornings there now. We love the park too much to let go just because it’s winter!

Does your child like the park? What is his/her favorite activity at the park? Do you have a favorite neighborhood park? It’s your turn to share!