The kids classes are so well curated and every artist gets a finished piece! My oldest just started…read morethe wheel throwing class after dozens of hand building classes and she loves both so much. What a treat to have such a wonderful studio that provides such a genuine art experience with ceramics. Highly recommended.

Terrific place that does such a great job with kids parties and classes. Owners are super nice and…read moreresponsive.

So many feelings. First of all I loved this WAY more than I thought I would. I HATE slime but my…read moregirls love it. So deep breath and who cares if clothes get ruined?! We went on Good Friday, lots of kids were off of school. We got the first time slot! Highly recommend this! The place is self guided and you can always go back to feel some more! If you think about germs and are easily grossed out, there's plenty of hand sanitizer around, or bring your own! But everyone is basically reaching in to feel the same slime you are. There's a small area the kids can take their shoes off and play in. Some squishes and slime they can go into (it's hard and doesn't stick to clothes!). They also have the "get slimed" station. I believe it's $30 and from the looks of it, it's just blue water. Didn't seem worth it to me. But my kids loved watching! The best part is being able to make your own slime! You can pick the consistency, smell and color! And as an added bonus you can pick out 3 charms! There's no food or drinks allowed in and they have a complimentary coat/bag check! Take a picture of your bag in case you drop your ticket! In addition, I find it hilarious that people are complaining about the price. Of course the place raises the price during peak hours. Now do I think $56 for a ticket is steep, yes! But plan ahead and always purchase tickets ahead of time! We paid $135 for 3 and were there almost 3 hours! We only left because we had lunch reservations!

If you see ticket prices online in your budget BUY THEM. Made the mistake of driving an hour a half…read moreto get there before close and the pricing almost DOUBLED. Family of 4 and paid $222 (the AGM on site didn't have a hospitable bone in their body and informed us "ticket prices hike due to demand") and didn't seem to care if we left or stayed. The museum itself is short lived. With a couple extra add ons for more $$$ The slime-tenders were a lot more pleasant than the AGM and made our experience more memorable. Also google is wrong and you can NOT pay upon arrival so that was misinformation as well. Overall 6/10 experience

We had the opportunity to visit Fit City Kids for a private birthday party. The facility is…read morespacious, sectioned off by activity, and has a nice party room. At the entrance, they have tables/chairs and many cubbies for shoes/coats. Make sure you have socks as shoes must be removed in most of the play areas. A waiver needs to be filled out in order to participate. I liked that you could do a paper version, use a tablet, or scan a QR code and do it on your phone. That helped the line move fast! They have a little toddler section, a basketball court, soccer area, gymnastics area, and slides! So, there's something for littles and the big kids...and they are sectioned off. There are benches in between all areas for parents/grownups to sit. The party room has an area to set up food and then the area with tables. I loved that it was a private event. I'm assuming this is an available option after hours, as this party was at 7PM. My daughter had so much fun and wants to have a party there now. If we were in the area, we'd love to check out their classes and other offerings. They also have a free parking lot which is a huge plus in the city!

It has been super cold for the last week or so and a friend and I decided we needed to get our kids…read moreout so they could have fun and run wild. I've seen Fit City Kids, having lived fewer than two miles away, but this was our first visit and it was great. The entrance fee wasn't bad, especially since one can stay for the full open play time. They have several different areas for play. There is a basketball court area, a play soccer field, gymnastics space, and an indoor playground. There's also a small area that is specifically designed for children aged three and under, although we were told that kids can play in any section (except for the bounce house, which is for the private parties). Our one year olds mostly played in the soccer area, having fun just running around. There's one half of the place where you can wear shoes or not (the basketball/soccer areas) and then in the other half you may not wear shoes. There are one or more party rooms in the back of the facility. (I'm not sure if they overlap parties or not; there were four happening on the day we were here.) Food is not permitted in the facility except for in the party rooms or in the front "lobby" area. They have a few snacks for sale, and based upon the water I bought for my babe the prices don't seem ridiculous. I really appreciate that they don't appear to have any restrictions on bring your own snacks and water, just asking that you respect the areas in which you can eat them. They don't have a water fountain (unless I just wasn't looking in the right places) so bring your own drinks. One downside is that I found only one changing station in the entire place. Don't look for it in the women's room (or probably the men's room, either, I'd expect) but in the individual gender neutral bathroom. With the number of children who might be here at any time and the age ranges they welcome, I was really surprised to see just the one. On the other hand, it was an actual changing table rather than a station that is bolted into the wall and folds down, which always make me a little nervous. They also don't have much space for parents to sit. There are some tables in the "lobby" and a few benches outside the various play areas, but it might be difficult for someone who needs a chair/seat, or someone who's disabled, especially if they want to be closer to the activity areas and keep an eye on their children. Another thing they need to work on is the parking lot. Their parking lot is really large, especially for Lincoln Square--and it's free!--so that's all to the good. Ideally they'd have straight parking spaces since that allows for the most spots; the lot is a bit narrow, so they've opted for diagonal with a few straight. But they need to paint the lot! Driving through this lot was difficult because people parked like they've never parked before. We will definitely return. There are several indoor playgrounds around and I'd like to try the different ones that offer entrance to kids as young as mine in part so we can figure out which are our favorites. But after my experience here I imagine we may be purchasing a membership in the future.

This place was incredible! My kids had so much fun! They…read morehad climbing structures of varying levels of difficulty for my bigger kids & a fun toddler area for my littles . They even had ninja warrior style ramps up to some of the climbing structures which my kids could do safely with the harnesses. And in the back there is a zip line obstacle course, video games, laser, tag, and more. We did not have time to do everything because there was just so much to choose from! I definitely recommend the physically active options over the video games. It is a bit on the pricey side, but definitely worth it!

We went to a birthday party this weekend at climbzone! I have seen ads for it all over the place…read morebut this was the first time seeing it. What a fun place!! There climbing walls, a soft play area, ropes course, zip line, laser tag, and bumper cars. As well as rooms/alcoves for birthday parties. It seems like there are activities for kids of all ages. I can't wait to go back with my little one.

Sean rocks! He had great advice for getting my planted tank established and he set me up with some…read moreember tetras and red cherry shrimp, both of which had pregnant females. The population in my tank is healthy and booming!! Thank you Sean!

As for the retail shop, not super knowledgeable people with terrible livestock choices. I've only…read morebought a handful of corals and they have introduced aptasia, an insane number of flatworms, bubble algae, and none of them were health either.

This was terrific! Had our 6 year old's birthday party here. First they went over some rules and…read morestarted the pizza dough. Then they decorated their aprons, mixed cupcake batter, prepped the pizza dough and put on toppings. Finally they made the cupcake icing and decorated them and ate everything! Well run and the kids had a great time.

Chef Laura is great! Both of my kids (9 and 11) love coming here and have been for years. The…read moreweekly class is engaging and fun and the camps are perfect for school closure days and summer break!

Came across this good park for kids in Lakeview East. It may be pretty small but it has enough for…read morekids. Margaret Donahue Park is more like a playground. Has a lot of things to play on including slides and more. The area is also pretty residential, so it's overall a lot quieter. A pretty clean and safe park I the pretty nice area. It's not really that much to look at to be honest. This is more like a playground. Good for the kids to play on. There's also a little waterpark. Cool place to cool off. This is one of the many local parks sponsored by the Cubs, so of course it's well maintained and safe. Has lots of modern facilities. It's clean and pretty safe around here. This seems more of a place for kids, but there's still a few benches to sit here, or whatever.

C'mon just look at the pictures! If you have a kid (and who doesn't in this part of the city), this…read moreis the park to take them to. You have the Sears Tower and Hancock representing, and a huge Cubs logo painted on the large grassy area that's perfect for picnics or little ones just learning to walk. There's also a splash pad area that's a hit in the summer. I think the best thing though about this park is how the community contributes to it. There are walkers and other toys strewn about, some of which I believe is donated by the Building Blocks toy store. It's an opportunity to teach the little ones how to share and take turns, and also means you don't need to bring anything of your own here other than some snacks for the kiddos. It does get busy at the times you'd expect it to like right after school, but it's also amusing to see the line of strollers when you get an unusually warm day in November or February. We have a couple parks closer to us but this one is worth the longer walk.

Perfect place to have your toddler's party!…read more There's a reason Purple Monkey keeps popping up every time I looked up toddler birthday party! I was a bit hesitant for the price of the venue but it was so worth it. First, it's private. Just for your kid(s) and their friends. It's a large room with a section that has tables and a kitchenette for the food and cake part and the rest is for the kiddos. There's a play kitchen, train set, a slide, all the things any toddler would love. Even my 11 year old enjoyed it because it reminded him of his younger years. I love that you get a "helper" with the part packages. Ours was Shannon and she was great. Helped decorate a bit. Cut the cake. All the things you need help with that you may not have time for and feel bad asking someone else to take charge of. Overall we had a great party. Couldn't ask for more.

Food was great and the helper was very attentive .we will definitely come back for another round!!!read more

I've been eagerly awaiting Bunny Ears' opening since I stumbled upon them at AppleFest in Lincoln…read moreSquare last year. Before they opened, they were doing pop-up events at markets, fairs, and festivals, and they had an activity in the children's area at AppleFest last year. They opened in the last month or so and today I finally was able to visit! On Fridays, they have a session called Fluffle Babies (did you know that a group of bunnies is called a fluffed? I didn't!) for children up to age one and their caregiver(s). My baby is less than a month from turning one so I needed to get in here quickly! It was a fun morning. The owner was our host, and she had selected a topic for us to all share about so that we had a starting place for conversation. We introduced ourselves and our little ones, and shared our perspective on the morning's discussion topic. Then she introduced the art play for the day, which this morning was edible paints where we used rice cereal with food dye to color the cereal. Jinny explained that it's helpful to teach children not to eat paint, even though this is edible, because when they start playing with tempura paints, acrylics, and so on they will not be edible. My little one stirred the "paint" a little, ate some, smashed her hands in it, and crawled around. It was a fun morning for her! There are several different stations and tables for kids to partake in their activities. I'll be this is a fantastic place to have a kids party! When you enter you'll take your shoes off and there's a partial wall with a door to keep children from scampering off once they enter the art space. There's a tinker bar, several sinks, a play area with magnetic tiles, a place for playing with water... there are so many possibilities for children to have fun and be creative. I attended one of the toddler classes and it was good, but perhaps a little advanced for my daughter; it was ages 1-5, and there's a huge difference in one year olds (which is my daughter) to five year olds. Given that, the fact that I live in one of the outer neighborhoods now (instead of five minutes away), and that the class is on a weekday so I can't miss work each week I am not sure I'll be able to continue the class. But we may stop in on an open play day or something. I love the concept of this place and am look forward to visiting again and continuing to learn some fun ways to encourage artistic creativity in my little one! They are good about safety. Once the class starts, they lock the door (ask me how I know--luckily the babe was inside with grandma in the event I was locked out the entire time!). They have some great options for parents with slightly older children, as they have offered drop-in play for Maifest and they have it for Square Roots, too. I love that they offer this for parents to have just a little free time while their kids are having a blast on their own. Parking is street only or the lot across from Old Town School if it's not in use/blocked.

We had a 4 year old birthday, everything went smoothly and was so much fun for the kids! They made…read morebracelets, painted the walls, built a fort, and celebrated! We brought snacks, cupcakes, and some table decorations, bunny ears did everything else. Thank you for a great time! Staff was friendly, helpful, and everything was efficient!