Things to do for young kids? (Atlanta, Decatur: neighborhood, YMCA, school)

[786AA]

We are looking for ideas for our 6 yr old and 3 yr old for weekends. We are members of the aquarium, botanical garden, zoo, children's museum, High Museum, and are at one or more of those places every weekend. What else is there to do in Atlanta for kids that young?

[TakeAhike]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...ivities-2.html

[MiriL]

We do a lot of hiking -- Stone Mountain, Panola Mtn, Fernbank Forest, the trails in WD Thompson Park, Lullwater at Emory. We also spend a lot of time at parks, from Piedmont Park down to smaller neighborhood parks (great ones in Inman Park, Decatur, VA Highlands), and enjoy watching sports leagues play on the fields. Take MARTA anywhere you can, and that makes it more fun. The pools will be opening relatively soon. We also go to lots of the state parks that are near Atlanta. Plus, it's festival time -- that's always great for kids.

[reet4587]

We've got a toddler, so our situation is a little different becasue just running wild thrills him -- still, I second the recommendation for taking MARTA. Our son loves to ride the train and the bus and even some of the stations can be pretty cool to see. Decatur is a good train destination and so is Peachtree Center with the Olympic Park nearby.

Tanyard Creek and Memorial are two of our favorite parks to go to. Also, the forest at Fernbank Science Center (not the big museum location) is a nice walk.

We've got passes for the Botanical Gardens, Zoo and Imagine It ourselves and I know how it can be easy to get bored with visiting those same spots every weekend.

[lolamom]

You have a lot of good suggestions above. There is a website that I love called atlkids.com that has weekly emails with all the cool stuff that is going on.....

[bayarea-girl]

786AA, thank you so much for starting this post.

[plessthanpointohfive]

I have a 7 year old. On Saturdays he plays soccer (Atlanta Youth Soccer Association). Kids can start playing at age 5.

We also go on family bike rides on PATH and visit Candler Park and Inman Park (the actual parks).

Is your 6 year old in school? Weekends is often playdates with school friends and that can just be at home...

[MovintoJax]

You can check out GoCityKids for recommendations each week -- Go City Kids - Atlanta - Kids & Family Activities, Atlanta Entertainment & Events -- there are always a lot of fun things!

There are always storytimes at bookstores like Barnes and Noble or Borders...stuff like swim lessons at the YMCA...playgrounds and parks...we always went to Gymboree or The Music Class (The Music Class - Early Childhood Music & Movement Classes) -- they have a wide age range but I think it's 1-4 (you could double-check that) so that might not work.

I always felt like we had too many options on the weekends, if you keep on top of calendar listings you might find the same thing!