What Parents with Toddlers Like to Do
What Parents with Toddlers Like to Do
What do toddlers and parents enjoy doing together? We focus here on community spaces offering events series and everything that can easily be reached by transit, on foot, or on bicycle.
There are many websites listing individual family events. What we’re trying to do here is to provide an overview of activities families with toddlers like to do together. We also focus as much as possible on organizations who are community oriented, and accessible without a car. There are plenty of lists out there for car-oriented commercial children venues. If a program we’ve listed ceases to exist, you may find a similar one reincarnated by a different organization - check Google! This follows our newsletter on all the links for expecting and new parents, listing all the parent groups, activities to do with an infant, and all the community resources we know of.
Events highlights
It’s Pride Month! 510 families have a round up of all the family-friendly Pride events.
Ruth is hosting a parents circle at the Commons on Saturday mornings - parents pool $20 for local highschoolers to babysit kids while parents chat.
What we’re up to
We’re writing up newsletters about the Dogpatch Hub, camping and hiking with kids in the Bay Area, third spaces for teenagers, and resources for raising bilingual kids. We’re always open to new contributors!
We’re reading Matrescence by Lucy Jones and Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik. These are not parenting advice books, but rather works exploring the beautiful and joyful transformations parents experience and what we can learn from our little ones.
On to links.
Event Series by City-Run Organizations and Partnerships
The library hosts storytimes, crafts, play, and sports events. Children can also get their own library cards! The library offers access to lots of audiobooks and media for children.
San Francisco’s Department of Early Childhood hosts many events in Family Resources Centers around the city, often bilingual.
The Botanical Garden hosts family activities called Bean Sprouts Days. There’s also a Children’s Garden with a mud kitchen, sandbox… and the little ones love to visit the Japanese Tea Garden
Parks and Recreation hosts Early Childhood programs (see also Indoor play spaces and play times hours in our previous newsletter). They also run the Randall museum, which hosts community events and drop-in art and science events every Saturday afternoons, as well as classes (toddler carpentry anyone?) during the year.
SF children nature is a cross-organizations initiative listing nature-focused events around the city.
San Francisco Park Alliance funds and organizes tons of family-friendly outdoor events.
More Family Classes and Events
We know that most events are happening during weekdays, preventing families with two working parents from participating. We’re highlighting both and noting which classes happen after work hours or on the weekend. Note that CCSF is very family friendly and hosts both family classes and helps parents who want to take a class either by providing childcare or being flexible with allowing to bring your kid.
Sports
All Ages Roller Skating at Hayes Valley Playground - Every Monday (except school holidays) 3-6pm. Skates available to borrow for free toddler size 8 to adult size 9!
Sports for kids with adults participation include dance (ODC dance), martial arts (see Barrios), gymnastics (see SF Gymnastics, Acrosports, Gymtowne), climbing (see Mission Cliff) and soccer (see SF Tots soccer). I assume toddlers can participate in nearly anything if appropriately supervised - ask the venue what a toddler participating safely would look like.
I’ve taken my toddler to lots of community outdoor yoga and zumba classes! The UN plaza program is very kid-friendly, but I’m sure there are others. Outdoor classes are easier because if the toddler wants to leave, it’s easy to step out. There is also childcare at some YMCA locations through their Y Kids program. And some gyms have programs for parents (see for instance MOMfit).
Arts and Crafts
There are tons of all ages art workshops around town. Ruth’s Table is a non-profit hosting intergenerational arts workshops on Wednesday afternoons and some weekends. SF Arts Ed offers classes regularly on Saturdays. Intergenerational Play Collective partners with different organizations to offer art and music classes. Scrap (a shop for second hand art supplies) hosts workshops usually open to all ages. YBCA hosts free art workshops open to all. The Museum of Craft and Design hosts MakeArt workshops all around town and in Dogpatch.
Parks and Rec hosts Little People's Art Studio at various locations and Little Hands Creative Art at Eureka Valley Rec Center from Fall to Spring. Check the catalog when it comes out!
In the Mission (requires payment), Precita Eye’s offers painting classes for toddlers and we loved the family ceramics series at Artillery AG (not yet a regular program).
Music and Performance
There are some community family programs in music and performance too! Not enough in our opinion, but we highlighted Small Art Music Projects. MappSF (a bimonthly performances programs) is also super family friendly. And there are some theater shows for children. Shows by Circus Bella are generally free.
Nature and Science
We strongly believe kids thrive outside! Here are a few more organizations focused on helping the whole family enjoy the outdoors.
SF Nature has an educational program. We did their birding class with a 20 month old and he loved it.
SF Maritime (which includes the Maritime Museum, Hyde street pier…) has a junior ranger program!
Mission science workshop hosts free community days. Stemful has drop-in hours for their community play space (requires payment). A note that Randall Museum, which we linked at the top of this newsletter, offers sciences programs on Saturday.
There are drop-in community gardening days at Alemany Farm and In Chan Kaajal Garden. See also the Green City project for volunteering opportunities.
Parenting Support and Playgroups
Children’s Council hosts a parents cafe and playgroup Tuesday.
CCSF offers tons of classes for parents and children - as well as childcare for students. See Family offerings.
Oogubi offers sensory/messy play playdates in Noe Valley and Mission Bay (requires payment).
What should we add to this list? Let us know!
If Your Toddler Needs Motivation to Go Out
If your kid is into sticker charts and the such, you could get an explorer map at a San Francisco Public Library Branch. Stickers! We’ve also heard of city parks passports.
Our fav kids books about San Francisco: Boats on the Bay (picture book and board book), ABCs of Golden Gate Park, Last Stop on Market Street. Find all the things!
Community Play Spaces
We love San Francisco’s playgrounds. Sean Hewen made a beautiful map of all playgrounds, along with a passport to make sure you’ve visited them all. See also Playgrounds and pizzas. Since it’s summer a reminder there are three splash pads in San Francisco: Tunnel Tops, 24th & York Mini Park and Mission Playground. Community recreation centers are also fantastic resources: find yours and get involved! The Dogpatch Hub is a new “community living room” that we describe in more details here. It’s worth mentioning again family resource centers, the library Children’s Center, and the play space at New Resources.
Museums - for Kids but not Only!
Museums are developing lots of new, exciting exhibits focused on children all over the country. We’re lucky to have many kids-focused museums, which are free or low cost for families receiving EBT or Medical, and offer free tickets through Discover and Go.
The Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences are primarily focused on experimentation and natural sciences.
The Creativity Museum and Bay Area Discovery Museum have more of a focus on crafts and play.
The Disney Museum is great for families.
OMCA (in Oakland near Bart Lake Merritt) and Randall Museum (always free!) offer a mix of sciences and arts.
Generally, young kids love art museums: Stairs! Fun lights! Things to see! And museums have truly adapted to this.
There are permanent crafts station at ICA San Francisco and the Museum of Crafts and Design;
There is a community room at SF MOMA for families who need a break, as well as family days and activities;
De Young and Legion of Honour are unfortunately not parent-friendly: they hassle parents who breastfeed or feed bottles near galleries and they often refuse to provide a care tag for the bags of caregivers. De Young however has a wonderful sculpture garden where kids are much more welcome, an observation tower where you can see almost all of San Francisco, and it’s right next to the Botanical Garden and Japanese Tea Garden.
Amusement Park
A special note for Fairy Land, a beloved and very retro amusement park in Oakland with wonderfully painted wooden installations based on fairy tales. It features puppets and theaters.
For the Infrastructure Enthusiast Kiddos
Toddlers often can’t get enough of watching trains, boats, construction sites, buses and all the trucks. If you find yourself in that situation, here are suggestions.
Cycle across the bridges: bikes, even cargo bikes, can board the ferry to Treasure Island. You can cycle and ferry bike the same way, or from Jack London. Golden Gate Bridge is even easier, and you can get to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in 10 minutes!
Take the ferry to Sausalito to visit the Bay Area Model.
There are two transit museums in San Francisco, one near Embarcadero (Railway Museum) and one near Chinatown (Cable Car Museum).
Sadly, children under nine are not allowed to visit Recology.
Not accessible by transit but…
Adventure Playground enables children to build things with wood and saws and nails, and paint over structures, and generally experience the kind of risky play that helps development. Kids under 6 must always be supervised by their adults!
Tilden train and the Golden Gate Live Steamers offer miniature train tours not too far from transit. We’ve previously hiked up there from Rockridge and Orinda.
Family Friendly Hikes
This deserves its own post! But do check out the urban hikes part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, Angel Island, and Strawberry island.
Should we add something to this post? Let us know!