Township Park (Airplane Park), Edwardsville IL

Location:  6368 Center Grove Road, Edwardsville, IL 62025

Amenities: 3 playgrounds, picnic shelters, tennis courts, soccer field, inline skating rink, restrooms

Websites: https://edwardsvilletownship.com/township-park/park-features-2/#parkplaygrounds

Playground ground cover: wood chips and poured rubber

Township Park in Edwardsville is also known as Airplane Park due to the A-7 Corsair Naval Aircraft situated facing the road at the front of the park.

The park boasts a playground by Boundless Playgrounds. The playground is designed to be used by children of all ages and abilities - with adaptive swings and ramps up to the play decks. The playground has a forest theme, with the center being made to look like a tree house with tunnels below the deck, and a double slide down from above. Look for the animal faces hidden in the tree bark - my 3-year-old loved them! The forest theme is continued throughout the playground with a mushroom picnic table and mushroom steps leading to one of the play decks, climbing poles that look like trees, a bee-hive tunnel climber, and a dragonfly teeter-totter.

There are some shade canopies over the playground, which don't shade the entire playground (so be sure to apply sunscreen) but do provide welcome relief from the suns rays. 

The swing area contains 2 adaptive swings, 4 sling swings, and 2 baby swings, plus a bench swing. There's also a music area (which is shaded by a canopy as well).

This playground was crowded - but it's huge so it can hold a lot of kids. However, due to its size, if you have a smaller child, you'll probably want to follow them around somewhat - especially if he likes to climb up ladders that are a little beyond his abilities!

Plan to stay awhile when you come since the design of the playground offers so many different imaginative storylines that your kids can act out. 

The other playground is right next door and it is really fun and different. 

The pointed tops give it a bit of a castle feel. There is a wooden firetruck, boat, plane, and general store.

This is the 3rd playground located at the very front of the park, near the two silos (which they use for storage, in case you were wondering - it was the first thing I noticed when we pulled into the park!). This very small playground has some slides and a rock wall. 

Spanish Village Park, Bridgeton

Location: 12827 Spanish Village Drive, Bridgeton, MO 63044

Amenities: playground, tennis court, picnic shelter, basketball court, ball field

Website: https://www.bridgetonmo.com/Facilities/Facility/Details/Spanish-Village-Park-18

Playground ground cover: Wood chips

There are 2 playground structures at Spanish Village Park, however, both need significant ground cover before they can be considered safe for children of any age. You'll see from the picture below, that the preschool slide has approximately a 25-inch drop-off at the bottom of it.

The entire structure is too high above the ground, notice the huge step to climb up the stairs onto the equipment in this next picture.

The playground is rather old but still has plenty to do. There is a bubble window, tic tac toe board, slides, and lots of bars and poles.

The backside of the structure has bouncy spring toys, and the cement bases holding them to the ground are exposed.

She had fun on the bouncy horse after I turned the plastic handguards around to empty water from them - might be a better solution to drill holes in the backside of them to drain water - if it rains during warm weather these are sure to breed mosquitoes!

The second playground structure is designed for school-aged children but it too needs more ground cover. Below the hand-over-hand bars, the cement bases are so exposed that they are sticking up several inches out of the ground.

Ballfields

Restrooms

The Lodge at Des Peres Outdoor Pool, Des Peres

Location: 1050 Des Peres Rd., Des Peres, MO 63131

Amenities:

• Family pool with zero-depth entry and children's slide oceanic entry
• cool water whirlpool
• sunning pad with just enough water to cover your feet
• lazy river (single and double tubes)
• flume slide and 75-foot speed slide
• splash pad
• concession stand

Website: https://www.desperesmo.org/150/Aquatic-Centers

The Des Peres outdoor pool is a very nice facility. The family pool is great, with slides for preschoolers - kids need to be able to go up the stairs and sit down on the slide by themselves. Parents can stand at the bottom of the slide to catch their kids.

photo credit: http://chah2o.com/projects/TheLodgeDesPeres.aspx

The splash pad area is wonderful for kids and has a ton of sprayers and moveable animals that spray water.  My daughter loved standing under the buckets waiting for them to dump water on her head.

The 2 big slides are for kids 48" and up and they are fun! The blue slide is slow and twisty and the yellow speed slide sends you flying straight down into the water at a very fast speed. It was intense and so fun!