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Small but very nicely kept playlot with 2 large playsets, several baby swings. Close to Brown line El stop. Cafe and governor of IL nearby!

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Large park with baseball fields, indoor pool, gazebo. Large play area with slightly older equipment. Wood chips. Near Western stop on Brown line El. Sulzer Regional library nearby.

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Very large play area with large wooden structures for climbing. Can be very busy with lots of Lincoln Park trixie moms. Many cafes and shops nearby. Street parking can be difficult to find.

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Hipster central, this newly rehabbed soft surface park attracts. Guess who's a mom, and who's a nanny at this busy playlot. No restrooms in the park, but many cafes nearby. Next to Damen stop on Blue line.

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A solid choice, especially in the summer with an exceptional water play area. Soft surface, and an area to lay down a blanket and picnic. Very busy during peak times, but at other times almost nearly empty.

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Erhler is a neighborhood playlot with newer play structures, rubberized surface and a good sandbox. This is a favored play area for neighborhood families. There's an open grassy area on one side, and another grassy area with small trees on the other side. Very clean, well-maintained. Near Irazú restaurant. No restrooms. No shade over the play area, so it is NOT a good place to be in the middle of a hot summer day.

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Adams Playground has a great water-play area. Usually open in afternoons during the summer. Can get crowded on a hot day. Call the park at 312-742-7787 for hours. Restrooms. There is a nice little fieldhouse -- a very good place to hold a birthday party. Shaded picnic area. Brand new play equipment coming for the summer of 2006. Close to cafes on Armitage Avenue. Parking is very difficult. You can get here by taking the Armitage bus and getting off at Seminary or take the Brown Line to Armitage and walk west to Seminary.

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I like 3 things about this park. (1) It isn't very crowded. (2) It's surrounded by train lines, and my train-loving child loves to watch the train traffic while playing here. (3) It's near great food in Chinatown. The playlot is several years old but is still in decent shape. Rubberized surface, good play structures, limited shade, no restrooms. This park can be hard to find! Use the map.

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Beautiful location, perched right on a small bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Attractive new nautically-themed play structures. Great shade trees (just not over the play structures), nice breeze from the lake. Cultural center with restrooms. There's a cute little beach here in a tiny bay down below the bluff. While it is on park district property, this is not really a public beach, and you have to walk past "no swimming" signs and scramble over the rocks to reach the beach. However, people often go down to the beach, and the park office's solution to this problem is to send over a lifeguard to watch people. I don't know how often they provide the lifeguard, and I don't know whether or not people sometimes get run off the beach. For a nearby legal beach, try Hollywood Beach about half a mile south of Berger Park. Easy access to Berger Park via the Red Line's Granville stop and the CTA's 147 and 151 buses that run on Sheridan Road.

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This park is right next to the Noyes stop on the CTA's Purple Line. It has a nice play area with lots of large shade trees and a big open grassy area near the play area. Restrooms are available in the Noyes Cultural Center on the western edoge of the park. It is near several modest cafes on Noyes. If you're in Chicago, this can make a good, easy excursion out of the city for a few hours.

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Nice play structures on wood-chip surface, shade trees in areas near the play area, open grassy area for running around, dog park at north end of park. The coolest thing here is the slide made of rolling cylinders. If you've got a little kid, make sure she doesn't get fingers caught between the cylinders, though. Ouch! No restrooms. Park on Marshfield, not Ashland.

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* Medium-sized playlot with modern, plastic play structures and swings.
* Very large fenced-in grassy area where kids can run around, throw frisbee, kick a ball around, ride a small bike, etc.
* There are shade trees with benches underneath them, but most don't shade directly over the play structures.
* Wood chips under the playlot with a very large grassy area next to it.
* Water play area housing a fountain with four different spray patterns and rubberized flooring.
* Public restrooms with changing tables in men's and women's.
* Five-minute walk from the Logan Square terminal on the Blue Line train.
* On-street parking is usually plentiful on side streets Schubert & Drummond.

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In addition to several baseball diamonds and a small prairie restoration area, Winnemac has a large playlot. The playlot is at the corner of Argyle and Leavitt. The ground cover is wood chips. The play structures are older -- about the same vintage as the Welles Park playground -- but well-maintained. The playground was clean when I visited. There are no restrooms here. Shade on the playground is limited.

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This is a large playlot with nice equipment. The surface under the play structures is wood chips. There is a very large sandbox here. There's not a lot of shade over the play structures and sandbox. However, the tall buildings just west of the park shade the playground in the late afternoon and evening, and the perimeter of the playlot is lined with trees and lots of benches under the canopies. There are also several animal sculptures that kids can climb on and play around. This park is kept very clean. No restrooms here, but it is a short walk to restrooms in the zoo.

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Clover Playlot is a small, well-maintained, very attractive playlot. The play structures are large and fairly new. There is one for smaller kids, and another for older kids. There are just a few swings, but the park doesn't appear to get crowded. The surface around the play structures is wood chips. This park has some nice trees for shade around the perimeter, and it has a good climbing tree in the middle of the playground. Gates lock and it's easy to keep an eye on your kid in this park. No sandbox. No toilets. However, the park is very convenient to the restaurants on Clybourn and the Webster Place complex, including the Barnes & Noble bookstore, and you should be able to change diapers there.

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Wrightwood has a very nice playground. It includes new play structures and a rubberized surface. There is a small sandbox. The little fieldhouse is open only during the day on weekdays. I was there on a Sunday, so I don't know if the restrooms in the fieldhouse have a changing table. The playground itself is not well-shaded, but there are plenty of trees around the edges of the play area. Some of them are nice climbing trees. There is a small pool near the playground. It's not a wading pool, though. We found parking easy on Wrightwood and on Greenview. The playground is not fenced off from the rest of the park, so you'll need to keep an eye on your kid.

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Small but suprisingly diversified, Supra (at Racine and Lill) is one of my local parks. Wood chips cover the ground, there are swings, a slide, a sand box, a coolio pirate boat to explore and various see-saws and climbing trees. There's plenty of shade and there's even a Starbucks across the street - what more could you ask!

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Foster Avenue Beach has two things that North Avenue Beach doesn't have: plenty free parking and fewer people on the beach, especially mid-week. There's not as much people watching as at North Avenue or Oak Street beaches. This beach is well-kept. It has lots space for kids to play. There is a small beach house with a snack shop, rooms for changing, and showers for rinsing off after playing in the sand. The parking lot is along the end of Foster Avenue, and the beach is just to the north of the parking lot. There is a bicycle rental facility next to the parking lot. The lakeshore path runs past this beach. Public transit isn't that great for this beach: the 146 and 147 buses stop at Foster Avenue and Marine Drive. The 151 bus runs just a little to the west on Sheridan Road.

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Holstein Park has a spanking new playground at the northern end of the park. The playground is shaded with several large trees. There is a small water-play area. Restrooms (not as nice as the new playground) are in the field house. The park also has an outdoor pool and a kiddie wading pool. There are special times for "tot family swim," "family swim," and "open swim." Call the park office at 312-742-7554 to ask about swim times.

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Sand Lot, Lots of Swings, Water fountains to run through and Jungle Gym. Some of the play equipment is not shaded, but there are trees throughout the playlot, and trees shade the sand box. The playlot is never crowded and when school is out it doesn't have all the school children from next door. Skinner is made up of a bunch of soccer fields, baseball diamonds, Bball courts and tennis courts that are open to the public. The actual playground is on the South/East side of the park next to Skinner elementary school.

Parking: The lot next to the park is for Skinner School which is pretty much empty when school is out, also there are plenty of free parking spaces along Monroe and Adams (not metered) and the cross streets. It's really driving around and finding a spot but it's nice there are no meters.

Food: There a lot of restaurants in walking distance east down on Madison and on Ashland near by.

Public transit: The Blue Line's Racine stop at 430 S. Racine Ave. is 4/10 of a mile from the park. Buses that run near the park include the #126 running west down Van Buren and east down Jackson and the #8 running north/south on Halsted.

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Nice little shaded park at corner of Ashland and Leland with swings, play equipment, and baseball field. Park building next door may have restrooms.

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Plenty of free parking, large play ground, lots of grass and trees and right next to the beach which had nobody on it at 10:30 in the morning. There is also food and rest rooms at the beach house. There is also a skate park if the kids want to watch skatboarders. It's extremely easy to get to by car , LSD going south or north and getting off at 31st.

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Nice soft surface playground well-shaded. Millennium Park close by with clean restrooms. Another private playground is just north.