The other night, I took Jacob to one of his friend's birthday parties, which was at an indoor children's play center.
The play center is in our city, and we have been there a few other times before - Jacob is a big fan. I had a little bit of a hard time getting my head around the concept of paying $10 to play indoors when you can play at home with tons of toys or outdoors for free. However, after being there the first time, I definitely found the cost was worth it.
This particular play center has about 10 "rooms" where they have a theme to the room. The goal is for the kids to expand their imagination, be active, and socialize with others. They specialize in play for kids with autism, as the activities are really helpful them. The rooms change occasionally, but examples include a train room, a sandbox room, a doctor's office room, a coffee shop room, a grocery market room, an outer space room, craft room, etc. In the middle of the center is a stage with instruments, microphones and costumes for kids to have some fun.
Jacob always enjoys the train room the most - he loves building tracks and incorporating cranes, railroad crossings, bridges, etc into the track and then will run the cars around the track for a long time. He also enjoyed the sandbox room, which was dinosaur themed this time, and they had dinosaurs hidden in the first for the kids to try and find. I was surprised by how much Jacob also enjoyed the grocery store room - he took a cart around and picked up whatever fruits, vegetables or meats I told him was on our "list" and then checked out with a credit card... ha!
Overall, if you have kids in between the ages of 2-10 and can find an indoor children's play center in your area, I would recommend checking them out. I find it is fun for Jacob to play with new things, use his imagination, and run around with other kids for a little bit!
Thanks for stopping by,
Brian