Unless you're living under a rock, or an ice-encrusted record-sized drift of snow, you've probably heard about Little Beans Cafe. While I had been anxiously awaiting the opening and planning to visit last week, I seemed to be fighting fate to get there. After making it thru an 8-hour carpet installation, our first trip the ER (1am!) with our toddler, a week without our babysitter, 2 days on the phone with web tech support - and a little blizzard - I finally made it.
Little Beans does not feel like a kid's play place when you walk in the door. It's a sophisticated coffee shop, with a regular seating area in the front and a nice selection of drinks and snacks. At the back is the play area, which includes a kiddie town with a fire station, a burning house (it took some time to convince my daughter that the house "on fire" was not really on fire... and it's cute, not scary), a gas station and grocery store. My daughter (almost 3) was first drawn to the reading area, when she caught a glimpse of Knuffle Bunny, sitting amongst some other popular kids books.
In addition to the kid town and reading area, my daughter very much enjoyed sitting in a little wooden fire truck. Her friend that joined us was instantly drawn to a doll house before heading over to the play buildings. There's also a nice area for crawlers to play.
In addition to open play, Little Beans offers a variety of classes like Family Yoga, Mommy Time Yoga, Music & Movement and Imaginative Art.
Little Beans is located at 1809 W. Webster Ave. and has open play from 9am-5pm Monday - Friday; 9am-2pm Saturday; 9 to 11am Sunday. Visit them online at www.littlebeanscafe.com.
Family fun, events and activities for Chicago kids and moms from Sue Zeiler, founder of ChicagoKids.com
Showing posts with label indoor play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indoor play. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Monday, November 9, 2009
Indoor Fun at Fantasy Kingdom
Fall is here and I'm hoping to find some fun indoor options for Mia this winter. I admit that I'm a little paranoid to take Mia to an indoor play place where kids are taking turns putting everything in their mouths. However, the alternative would be never letting her leave the house, which would drive us all crazy.
We finally tried out Fantasy Kingdom a couple of weeks ago. We invited a few friends to join us, and brought a few treats to share. Fantasy Kingdom has a nice clean kitchen area for parties or for just giving your kids a snack while they're playing.
Mia just turned 18 months old, so I wasn't quite sure what she'd be into at a place like this. It's a nice big space, mostly to the theme of a castle/kindom. In addition to the castle theme there is a police station, firehouse, and grocery, complete with costumes, slides, climbing areas, and plenty of little nooks and crannies for kids to explore. There's also a special separate area for the pre-crawlers and crawlers, with plenty of toys and things to keep them busy.
Mia was too young for a lot of the pretend play, but she found a few things that kept her completely enthralled. She had never ridden in a pretend car before, so she absolutely loved getting in and out of the pretend emergency vehicles. She fell in love with a plastic rocking horse, spent a good 15 minutes pushing around a lawn mower, and she became obsessed with a few of the realistic plastic animal toys. These aren't earth-shattering toys and activities, but they were the things that she ended amusing herself with for nearly 90 minutes!
I'm looking forward to going back and seeing how her interests change as she gets older. There are definitely toys and features for kids at every level up to age 6.
The parking is convenient there - we happened to luck out with street parking, but there's a huge indoor lot that's just $5 with validation. Regular admission is $12 per kid during open play hours.
Check out the web site at http://www.fantasykingdom.org
We finally tried out Fantasy Kingdom a couple of weeks ago. We invited a few friends to join us, and brought a few treats to share. Fantasy Kingdom has a nice clean kitchen area for parties or for just giving your kids a snack while they're playing.
Mia just turned 18 months old, so I wasn't quite sure what she'd be into at a place like this. It's a nice big space, mostly to the theme of a castle/kindom. In addition to the castle theme there is a police station, firehouse, and grocery, complete with costumes, slides, climbing areas, and plenty of little nooks and crannies for kids to explore. There's also a special separate area for the pre-crawlers and crawlers, with plenty of toys and things to keep them busy.
Mia was too young for a lot of the pretend play, but she found a few things that kept her completely enthralled. She had never ridden in a pretend car before, so she absolutely loved getting in and out of the pretend emergency vehicles. She fell in love with a plastic rocking horse, spent a good 15 minutes pushing around a lawn mower, and she became obsessed with a few of the realistic plastic animal toys. These aren't earth-shattering toys and activities, but they were the things that she ended amusing herself with for nearly 90 minutes!
I'm looking forward to going back and seeing how her interests change as she gets older. There are definitely toys and features for kids at every level up to age 6.
The parking is convenient there - we happened to luck out with street parking, but there's a huge indoor lot that's just $5 with validation. Regular admission is $12 per kid during open play hours.
Check out the web site at http://www.fantasykingdom.org
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