In the pantheon of childhood toys, it’s tough to beat sticks, rocks and mud. Throw in a few logs to climb and water for splashing, and kids have the tools to launch infinite adventures.
In the St. Louis area, a growing number of parks are combining those trusted elements to create nature-based playgrounds that skip metal structures and rubberized flooring in favor of tree rings and streams.
Jackie Wehmeyer of Washington and her 5-year-old son Andrew are regular visitors to Shaw Nature Reserve’s two play areas, the Nature Explore Classroom and Sense of Wonder Woodland.
“It’s a little more open-ended, child-led, learning-based,” Wehmeyer said. “It seems like they use their imagination more in this setting.”
Andrew had spent an afternoon building a fence out of sticks, navigating a giant net and scaling the trunks of downed trees. Wehmeyer said they still like traditional playgrounds, but the option to explore in nature keeps drawing them back.
With the opening of several new playgrounds in recent years, those kinds of experiences are becoming easier to find. Here are three to try:
Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape
Forest Park, east of the World's Fair Pavilion
Admission: free
The Nature Playscape sprawls across 17 acres of tree trunks, hunks of limestone, a sand pit and a stream that courses from a spring. The site mixes in elements of Missouri landscapes, from Ozark woodlands to prairies. Thoughtful touches throughout urge visitors to engage. Notches in trees stripped of bark and anchored in the earth invite climbing. Hand pumps atop a creek bank allow kids to slosh water over the rocky cascade. A ring of sawed-off logs of various heights offers an unspoken challenge to circumnavigate the loop one careful step at a time.
The playscape was an instant hit when it opened in 2021, but it’s large enough that it never feels overrun. Missouri wildflowers, native grasses and shrubs add to the feeling of escaping to nature, even in the middle of St. Louis. The paths, including wooden boardwalks, are well-maintained and designed with accessibility in mind.
There is ample parking along Carr Lane Drive, but you can also access the playground from bike paths and Metro’s Hampton 90 bus stop at Hampton and Oakland avenues.
East Stream Nee Kee Nee Play Area
Tower Grove Park, 4257 Northeast Drive
Admission: free
Tower Grove Park has two traditional playgrounds and a central fountain with a wading pool, which draws crowds of kids in good weather. That leaves the recently added natural play area refreshingly underused much of the time.
Located toward the southeastern corner of the park near the Stupp Center, the playground was built as part of a larger project to unearth a long-buried stream, direct water from the surrounding area to a string of rain gardens and recognize historical ties to the Osage Nation. The East Stream, dedicated as Nee Kee Nee (“Revived Waters” in the Osage’s language), was uncovered and restored in 2022, and a reflecting pool now marks its headwaters. A button at the pool, operable only in warm weather, sends water pouring around three boulders and into the stream. The boulders represent the Tribe’s three remaining clans. They’re a favorite destination for young visitors, who also tend to build little stone dams and structures downstream with the pebbles that line the channel.
The play area also includes plenty of places to climb. Rough-hewn balance beams crawl along one edge, and a gauntlet of posts, installed at V-shaped angles, make for a challenging trek from one foothold to the next. A cluster of squared-off tree trunks forms an uneven, checkerboard-like platform, perfect for hopping on with tiny feet.
Parking is available nearby in the park or close by on Arsenal Street.
Nature Explore Classroom/Sense of Wonder Woodland
Shaw Nature Reserve, 307 Pinetum Loop Road, Gray Summit
Admission: free for kids 12 and younger, $5 for adults or free with a Missouri Botanical Garden membership
Shaw Nature Reserve’s Nature Explore Classroom and Sense of Wonder Woodland are distinct but adjoining sections, each with its own charms. The classroom is an open area with features such as a climbing structure made of two sections of tree trunk bolted together to make a peak — with the branches worn smooth by years of grasping hands. At a carved “wingspan” board, children can measure their outstretched fingertips against marks for robins, geese and vultures. A rope net provides a spider’s perspective on the scene.
Steps away, the Sense of Wonder Woodland opens with the Storybook Walk, a series of kiosks displaying illustrated pages that line a trail. The space has the warm feeling of an aging scout camp. Quirky art — upturned trees made to look like faces with roots for hair and one painted like a moose — appear throughout. A fire tower looks out over a shallow pond, and a narrow bridge of trunks, still sporting limbs, runs along the edge of the water, offering just enough peril to thrill kids and adults.
The two areas are just beyond the visitor’s center in the larger reserve, and there is a parking lot a short walk up a hill.
Shaw Nature Reserve is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden, about a 30-minute drive down Interstate 44 from the south St. Louis garden. The reserve is loaded with hiking trails through prairie, wetland, glade and woodland habitats. If kids tire of the children’s areas, a wander down the Wildflower Trail and on to the Meramec River is just one option to scale up the outdoors adventure.
