Play
Come Play at Ijams!
Play is serious business! Research has proven that free play in nature is critical to early childhood development, helping to build cognitive, physical, and social skills. Giving children the opportunity for creative play that sparks their imaginations and challenges them to move in multiple planes positions them for success later in life.
Ijams Nature Center is dedicated to providing the space children need to engage with nature through climbing, crawling, romping, and tromping in natural landscapes.
Jo's Grove
Jo's Grove is a delightful hillside play area alongside the Ijams Visitor Center lawn. Here, your child can climb logs, explore twigloos, enjoy Teenie's Playhouse, and explore a quarter-acre natural playground. Like the rest of the Ijams grounds, Jo's Grove is open daily from 8 am to sunset. Restrooms and refreshments are nearby in the Ijams Visitor Center, which is open from 10 am-6 pm during warmer months and 10 am to 5 pm during the winter.
Ijams Nature Playscape at Grayson Subaru Preserve
A short walk from the Mead's Quarry parking lot, the Ijams Nature Playscape at Grayson Subaru Preserve is a new, innovative way to play that harkens back to when children played freely in their neighborhood woods, open lots, or countryside.
Today, many children lack these opportunities, so the Ijams Nature Playscape, which connects by trail to the Ijams Adventure Camp area, recreates these experiences, offering access for forest and creek play, digging, climbing, exploring, and learning in a five-acre natural area devoted to childhood nature play.
The Nature Playscape will make perfect sense to your child while challenging your perspective! You may see a log on the ground, but your child will see a climbing structure. Ijams encourages you to allow your child to explore the woods off the trails, climb the hills, watch tadpoles in the creek, and discover all this special area has to offer.
If you look closely, you'll see boundaries made of brush fences to keep children from wandering too far, but please keep them in sight. There's a whole lot of "yes" and not a lot of "no." Go play!
Restrooms are located at Mead's Quarry. Learn More and Get Directions to the Ijams Nature Playscape
