I am officially jealous of anyone who lives close to this beauty of a park! For the rest of us, it is certainly a great destination park to bring a picnic and make an Adventure Day out of it. (I know we will be!) If you can dream it, Griffin Park in Windham has got it. Hats off to the recreation department of Windham, NH!
Overview of Griffin Park in Windham
First, let’s start with a lay of the land: This is absolutely a sports complex. There are lots of fields and I’d bet the farm that during peak game times, the huge parking lot is jam packed. In addition to the multiple baseball and soccer fields, there is a whole line of basketball courts and tennis courts.
Then you have the fenced traditional playground over by the pond (“tot park” on the map) and the brand new in 2023 inclusive play area near the entrance to the park (“passive rec. area” on the map). The inclusive play area is next to a nice picnic area and while there is a border fence to define the space, it isn’t a fence to count on for safety. (Anxious mom brain eyeing the pond over there.)
Finally, the walking path. If you are the genius who made sure to wrap this beautiful, humongous space in a walking path, pat yourself on the back! The entire space is wrapped in a nice wide path. Meet up for a stroller walk and get a real mile in without having to leave or deal with the street! What a luxury to be able to walk or bike a mile without ending up a mile from the car!
The Inclusive Play Area at Griffin Park in Windham
Opened in 2023, this gorgeous space is rich with sensory, gross motor and fine motor opportunities. It is wheelchair friendly and inclusive, so there are multiple features that a child in a wheelchair could independently interact with. This is not my area of expertise so I will just stick to my parent-of-a-toddler perspective: This is tiny tot heaven! The youngest kiddo with us was three years old and around every corner I kept seeing things that I would have loved to have had access to when that kiddo was one or two.
Our crew’s favorite feature was definitely the merry-go-round. You can sit or stand and it was a very smooth ride, easy for little people to get moving.
Crawler and Wobbly-Walker Friendly
The ramps are perfect for a crawler or new walker to practice their skills and really let loose! There are railings for them to hold onto at multiple levels so everyone can reach and pull up on them.
There are toddler-height panels like this all over, some informational and some interactive. Each panel had something new and different to discover. There are a few different search-and-find challenges built into the space so if you have an older little who needs a project while their younger sibling explores, they can be on a mission to find all the critters!
A New Twist on the Roller Slide
Something I learned from my I-Know-Too-Much-About-Playgrounds Era is that there is a strategic purpose to the roller slides found at some parks. They don’t produce the static electricity that typical slides produce, making them accessible to kids with various medical devices. This particular roller slide is actually flat and I am sure there is a strategic application for that too. For a typical kid, it means they have to push themselves through using the bars on top. This was a fun ride even for the school-aged kids with us.
Developmentally-rich Environment
This park struck me as a great resource for anyone working with Early Intervention for any skills. Speech or OT, there is value here that would be challenging to recreate at home and priceless to development.
Natural Gross Motor Development
This is also a space that is great for anyone who is really trying to follow natural gross motor development and specifically tries to not help their kids on the playground. There isn’t anything here that a little should need help with or need a spotter for. They can feel confident with their skills getting them where they want to go and you can feel secure in letting them explore – the ramps only go up a few inches.
If you have one of those daredevil toddlers who is always immediately drawn to the giant equipment that they can’t actually reach yet, this is a nice alternative to help them just be happy in the space they are in.
As the layout is designed to be inclusive of wheelchairs/mobility aids, everything is spacious enough to allow for kids running around without a crawling or very-carefully-balancing tot getting run over in a bottleneck space.
Picnic Patio
Perfectly situated right next to the lovely picnic patio space, you have all the potential for that unicorn moment where the littles wander off to discover and you can sit and drink your coffee in peace – or, dare I say, maybe even have a full sentence conversation with a friend!? Everything is pretty low so it is easy for a grown-up sized person to scan and keep an eye on their tiny tot. Sometimes the panels can block them (short mom problems) but there is above average visuals in this space.
There’s a whole other playground!
Just a short walk down the path from the inclusive play space is a typical playground but there is nothing basic about it, this one is just as awesome as the rest of the park!
The pictures start to get a little discolored here because the sun started to set – the *summer* sun started to set. With all the endless fun, we closed down this park. I had to eventually be the grown up and pull the plug because it was about to be dark and scary!
The playground’s groundcover is woodchips, it is fenced all the way around and includes swings, a toddler structure and a main structure to play on.
If you’ve got an adventurous climber, hit this playground first. It was like a maze of endless opportunities to figure out how to traverse the space. Very floor-is-lava friendly!
Lastly, a covered picnic area and real bathrooms!
Further down the path past the playground is a bathroom facility with a covered picnic area. Besides a few trees around the playground and along the walking path, this is really the only shade in the open park. I wouldn’t count on the bathrooms to be open in the winter, but seasonal bathrooms for the win!
Quick Facts: Griffin Park in Windham
Griffin Park Inclusive Play Area Features
| Ground-cover: Rubber floor |
| Fenced: No; Permeable border fence |
| Stroller friendly |
| Next to picnic patio, benches at entrance |
| Full sun |
Griffin Park Playground Features
| Ground-cover: Woodchips |
| Fenced |
| Swings: Typical, bucket and accessible swings |
| Toddler sized and large structures |
| Climbing wall |
| Bench by the entrance |
| Full sun |
Griffin Park Features
| Stroller-friendly and Bike-friendly perimeter path |
| Seasonal real bathrooms |
| Fields: Baseball, soccer, lacrosse |
| Courts: Basketball, tennis, pickleball |
| Parking lot: Paved |
| Full sun picnic patio with gazebo; Covered picnic tables by the bathrooms |
Nearby Resources
| Closest Ice Cream | Walk next door to Johnson’s Farm for Richardson’s ice cream or farm-fresh produce, May-October |
| Closest Meal | The Common Man Windham (2 minutes away) for a sit down meal |
| Closest Coffee | Heav’nly Donuts (4 minutes away) Coffee, donuts and a bathroom! |
| Closest Groceries | Shaws Windham for pre- or post-playground sustenance. (6 minutes away) |
If you like the inclusive play space, check out Roby Park in Nashua. It has a green astroturf ground cover and many accessible features as well.
Happy Adventuring!
