Unique Family Fun at the Ithaca Children’s Garden

I travel a lot with my young children, and that means that we often visit playgrounds around both New York and elsewhere. However, we’ve never visited somewhere quite like the Ithaca Children’s Garden.

That’s because the Ithaca Children’s Garden isn’t a normal playground, and you won’t find things like traditional swings and slides in this three-acre space. Instead, there are creative areas designed to spark kids’ imaginations and encourage unique play.

The Ithaca Children’s Garden is located on the southern end of Cass Park in northern Ithaca near where Six Mile Creek enters Cayuga Lake.

The garden first opened in its current location in 2004 with a mission of connecting children with nature.

To this end, there are 15 different areas of the Ithaca Children’s Garden, including gardens, ponds, playing apparatuses, and much more. Certainly some of these areas lead to more structured activities, but there really is a very casual attitude here with the goal of letting children play how they want.

I was really amazed how much variety they packed into a relatively small space, and my children had a great time exploring spots like the wildflower meadow and the rice paddy pond during our visit.

Their favorite space, however, was the Anarchy Garden, which had a sign on a tree proclaiming it to be a space with “No Rules”.

Truthfully, this place is a kid’s dream and likely a nightmare for helicopter parents as it’s literally just a dirt area with a ton of random things including large tires, pieces of wood, and even unattached plastic slides that kids can use their imagination with.

While it’s certainly unconventional, my kids had a blast moving things around and creating their own play areas, and my wife and I really enjoyed seeing what they came up with.

Another area they really enjoyed was the garden’s giant turtle sculpture.

Named Gaia, this sculpture is approximately 50 feet long and 30 feet wide, creating a massive structure for kids to explore and climb on. There is also a lot of symbolism built into the structure, which makes it a great learning opportunity as well.

There are also a lot other great areas for kids to explore within the Ithaca Children’s Garden including a native wildflower garden, a large green space, manicured gardens, and even some small play houses for kids to enjoy.

There is also a small pond with small nets available for kids wanting to catch tadpoles or other aquatic wildlife, and a few enclosures that have animals like chickens and bunnies.

Overall, the Ithaca Children’s Garden is one of the most incredible play spaces I’ve encountered in my travels around New York. While it’s certainly a non-traditional area in many respects, that leads to a ton of creative play opportunities that kids are sure to love.

So, the next time you are visiting Ithaca with kids, make sure to explore this fabulous spot.

Looking for more to do in the area? Check out the Museum of the Earth, the Sciencenter, and the Ithaca Falls.