Every weekend i try to take my kids to somewhere and spend time together. But it's hard to find activities information that we can choose to attend in Dallas area. So it's end up we only go to park, shopping mall or watch movies. i feel that it should be more things/activities that we can spend time together and let my kids to experience something new .
Is anybody know that where i can find that kind of information ?
On Fridays, there is a Guide Section in the Dallas Morning news. It always has a kid's section. I think there is an online version also. The will also be another section of the paper specific to your area.
Check out http://familyeguide.com. It has a ton of information about family fun activities.
i always used fortworthchild.com, then click calendar on the left column, then click what county you're interested in looking for. At the end of each month, I'd do that for the entire upcoming month and pencil in whatever looked interesting onto our wall calendar. That way, if we found ourselves bored one week, we could say "oh hey---this is happening..."
DFW (the whole metroplex...though I spent most of our time in Ft Worth) is RICH in opportunities to have fun with your kids though! RICH. I haven't been there in 16 months now, but off the top of my head in the Dallas area I'm thinking the zoo, the aquarium, the arboretum (which is beautiful, and OFTEN has special events and mommy & me days, or special exhibits for kids to play in), the American Girl boutique, the huge Bass Pro (one of the biggest of all is in Grapevine and you can play around there on bad weather days for free, or the expense of some awesome fudge and the shooting arcade), there's a million libraries and they all have story time, classes, events, etc. I don't know how old your kids are but I used to take my son to storytime but also to see like, The Nutcracker from a local dance school, The Critterman came with tons of animals (hedgehog, prairiedog, lizards, etc), Mad Science was always lots of fun for adults and kids, a magician, a drum circle, once Santa and Mrs Claus came and had REAL reindeer in the parking lot of our library in DFW. There's the Dallas Museum of Art, (there's actually several neat art museums), an environmental learning center, the Nash (is it Nash or Nasher?) is a neat sculpture museum (I think Wednesdays are free), the science/nature museum, fairpark has neat shows: I got a brochure in the mail and Dallas is listed as one of the places the River Dance is showing, children's theaters (plays, musicals, etc), all kinds of neat things. Then there's the more local events like festivals, concerts, etc. You could tour a ranch or farm, visit a farmer's market and let your kids pick out something interesting and cook a new recipe with it that night. Does your neighborhood have a spray park or pool to plan for the summer? Our old neighborhood had walking trails, a park, several playgrounds, a spray park, a pond where you could feed fish and turtles or ducks. There's ice skating, roller skating, some of the malls have indoor playgrounds for little ones. Most fast food restaurants have indoor playlands for bad weather (our local McDonalds had "small fry club" on Tuesdays where a lady read a story, had a special guest like a fireman, dentist, Ronald McDonald, etc came to talk and show the kids stuff, we did a craft or played a game, sometimes there was a holiday "party", then they could play while we moms chatted). Let the kids take a ride on the train from like Dallas to Arlington or wherever. What about season passes to 6 Flags or Hurricane Harbor? Take a walk downtown. Go to Ripley's Believe it or Not, Medieval Times, or the National Boyscout Headquarters and Museum. We spent ALL DAY at the scouting museum one time, and then went to The Magic Time Machine for dinner which was a lot of fun. There's a observation park on the north side of the DFW airport where you can have a picnic at a picnic table, watch the planes come in and take off (you're REALLY close but totally safe), some telescopes that work without having to put in money, and enough room to play catch or kick a ball around between planes. Sometimes if we had no money, we'd just go to the airport and ride the busses or the train there (all free) from terminal to terminal, and then go back to the car, drive to the observation park, have a picnic, kick the ball around, lay down in the grass and watch planes and make up stories of where they're coming from or where they're going and what they'll see and do. While there, teach the kids to make pictures with the clouds. There's the different things to do at the different lakes around there. If you want to venture to Ft Worth I think they have an excellent museum/theater district. Several art galleries in Sun Dance Square that I love, and they're free to roam through. A curator at the Western art gallery in the Square will gladly take you on a tour and give you some neat history and stories. While there have some awesome BBQ, or the best salsa ever at Cabo Grande, or some good pizza at Uno's. Park on the top of the parking garage so you can look at the awesome angels almost face to face on the Bass Symphony Orchestra Hall. Ft Worth has a couple good childrens theaters (Casa Manana was our favorite), the Amon Carter, the Kimball is world class and the regular exhibit is free, the Modern, the Children's Museum where they can play and experiment, the Science is little but has the planetarium and IMAX, and we loved the Cowgirl museum. They are all walking distance of each other, there's Log Cabin Village, we LOVE LOVE LOVE the Ft Worth Botanical Gardens and used to play soccer and picnic there in the open areas, or roam around smelling roses, or go on the TX boardwalk, or have a beautiful serene day in the Japanese Gardens (the Japanese Garden is the only part that charges, so you don't have to go there unless you want to). Once I was in the Japanese Garden with a friend when a huge storm blew through, and that was too cool. We were in a "real" rainforest, lol. The smells were amazing. We just laid under a little shelter and listened, smelled, and watched. There's a neat nature place there that we went on a bison feed/hay ride and loved it. That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but there's loads to do and I'm sure I'm missing some things. Oh--the Ft Worth zoo is much better than the Dallas zoo, and we really thought that was fun to do. And you can't forget the Ft Worth stockyards and all their events. Or the rodeo livestock show. Or just roam around downtown Ft Worth (Sundance Square is very clean and very safe, and my sons loved looking at the tall buildings, going to the water gardens and exploring that). In the summer if your children are not in school yet, a lot of movie theaters have a free or super cheap movie every week in the morning. (Most are free, Harkins in Southlake was like $3). And if you want to take a day trip: what about Fossil Rim or Dinosaur Valley? (Don't do the Valley in the summer-it's HOT but when the weather is cool, it's very cool to see all those fossils and explore on your own).
In addition to the two suggestions below -
Daily Candy Kids - Dallas
DFWChild.com - this is the Dallas Child magazine, but they send you a weekly email of "what's happening" like Daily Candy.
One more source of information is The Savvy Source.
Some of these may be repeats but typing this from my phone so it is difficult to read all the replies.
Intheloopkids.com (just changed to a bubblelife site but there should be info on how to get to the new site)
Northtexaskids.com
Dallas and Allen public libraries regularly have fun activities for kids...check your local library
Home Depot and Lowes Saturday kids' crafts
Pegasusnews.com (events > kid/family friendly)
Guidelive.com (similar set up to Pegasus)
My Dallas Mommy is great for that. Also, frugal In Fort Worth. There are things for Dallas listed, for free museums etc.
