In our house, winter is building season. By January the cardboard castle in the living room has usually been rebuilt twice, the couch cushions are load-bearing, and somebody wants to know why we can’t build a slide down the stairs. That’s usually the point where we pack the snow boots and head somewhere with a climbing frame bigger than anything I can make out of boxes.
Winter can make it harder to keep kids active, curious, and busy with their hands, which is why indoor activities for kids in Minneapolis are worth planning around. Minneapolis is a great place to see this in action. With long, cold winters, families across the Twin Cities have plenty of indoor options, from giant climbing structures and building zones to hands-on art activities. The best indoor activities for kids in Minneapolis offer more than a way to burn off energy. They give kids new ideas for what they can build and create at home.
For maker families, that’s where the fun continues. A trip to an indoor playground might inspire a cardboard tunnel, a homemade obstacle course, or a new living room fort. This is how I’d pick a spot, and the places around Minneapolis, St. Paul and Woodbury that fit a family that likes to make things.
What Should a Maker Parent Look For in an Indoor Play Space?
Look for somewhere that gives kids problems to solve, not just a screen and a ball pit. After a few winters of building at home, these are the four things I look at first.
- Loose parts. Big foam blocks, ride-on toys, pretend shops and craft tables let kids build their own game. A fixed structure only gets climbed.
- Something taller than you can build. A multi-level climbing frame or a rope web is the one thing a cardboard fort can’t give them.
- Sightlines. Netting rather than closed tubes, and an open floor where you can see your child from a bench, make a long afternoon much easier.
- A separate space for the littlest. If you’re bringing a toddler and an older sibling, a gated area for under-fours matters more than the size of the main frame.
And always check the house rules before you go. Most Twin Cities play spaces ask everyone to wear socks, and some are booked in sessions rather than drop-in.
Where Can Kids Build, Climb and Make Things Around Minneapolis?
For building, Good Times Park in Eagan is the pick. Alongside a ninja course and a jumping pillow, it has a building zone stocked with big foam blocks. It runs self-supervised, with entry by QR code, so a parent has to stay on the floor.
For climbing, two suburban rooms stand out. Backyard Indoor Playground at Brookview in Golden Valley is a three-story structure built mostly from netting, with separate areas for two-to-fives and six-to-twelves. Edinborough Park in Edina is run by the city. Its Adventure Peak climbing structure has tunnels wide enough for a parent to follow, and Little Peak is a padded, gated area for four-and-unders.
For making things, try Crayola Experience at Mall of America. It has more than twenty hands-on stations where kids melt crayons into keepsakes and name a crayon of their own. Allow three or four hours, and eat before you go, because there’s no real food inside.
Two more fit a maker family:
- Be with Me Playseum in Ridgedale Center, Minnetonka, is a row of small themed shops for dress-up, pretend cooking and crafts.
- Rainbow Play in Bloomington is a backyard playset showroom that opens its floor for booked play sessions on weekdays. It’s worth a visit if you’re weighing backyard playground options for spring and want to see the sets in person.
A museum morning is the other easy winter plan, and it suits builders too. The Minneapolis Institute of Art has free general admission to its permanent collection. At Mill City Museum, kids can work the water tables, run a train across the track table and visit the Baking Lab, then try to copy the setup at home with a tub and some cardboard. In St. Paul, the Bell Museum’s Touch & See Lab and the Minnesota Children’s Museum’s climbing structure are worth the drive. Prices and free days change, so check each museum’s site before you go.
Opening times and session rules change through the winter, so check a current list of indoor playgrounds around Minneapolis on kidsvenues.com before you set off.
What About St. Paul and Woodbury?
The east metro has some of the best climbing in the Twin Cities, and two of its rooms are run by cities.
- Eagles Nest Indoor Playground, New Brighton. A City of New Brighton facility whose main structure was rebuilt in 2017. It has a 23-foot web tower, a long wave slide, a tightrope walk and a tunnel maze, which suits school-age climbers best.
- Fun City Maplewood. Foam pits, climbing walls, a ropes course and a ninja course under one roof, so it plays more like an adventure park than a playroom. There’s no snack bar, but outside food is allowed, so pack lunch.
- Lookout Ridge, Woodbury Central Park. Run by the City of Woodbury, with a remodeled structure that is taller and better for climbers than for toddlers. The rules on socks and food are firmly enforced.
- Good Times Park, Woodbury. An open floor where you can keep track of several kids from almost anywhere in the building. The day pass allows re-entry, so lunch out and a second session is easy.
In St. Paul itself, Rebe’s play cafe is a café with two play areas for kids from birth to eight. It’s stocked with sensory and imaginative-play toys, and there’s real food for the adults. It’s the gentlest option on this list.
Not every winter outing needs an admission fee. Hennepin County Library runs baby and family story times and has play spaces in its kids’ areas, and St. Paul’s libraries rotate themed play spaces too. You don’t need to be a member or even a resident to use them. In St. Paul, city recreation centers list free open gym with no registration, plus drop-in Tot Times for kids five and under with a caregiver. Schedules vary by branch and center, so check your nearest one first.
Which Winter Indoor Spots Work Best for Toddlers?
For under-fours, a small room beats a big frame. The Play Group in Minneapolis is built for babies and toddlers up to about four, with Montessori-style and imaginative-play toys. Every visit is booked ahead, and the door code arrives by email.
Edinborough Park’s Little Peak is a padded, gated area inside a bigger park, which helps when an older sibling is along. At Mall of America, Adventure Bay inside Nickelodeon Universe is a PAW Patrol play area with clear height rules. Children up to 42 inches play with a grown-up, and children from 43 to 52 inches can play on their own.
One honest tip: at the bigger parks, toddler zones aren’t always kept free of older kids. Pick a quiet weekday morning if you can, and plan to stand by the gate.
How Do You Bring the Building Home Afterwards?
Treat the outing as research. Kids come home from a climbing frame full of ideas, and the best winter projects start the same evening, while the ideas are fresh.
- Copy a structure. Ask what they liked best (the tunnel, the lookout, the slide) and sketch it together. Then build a smaller version from boxes. A fold-away cardboard playhouse makes a good base.
- Build a course. Foam blocks and ninja courses translate well to a hallway. Pool noodles, cushions and painter’s tape make an indoor obstacle course that’s safe on hard floors.
- Make the keepsake. If you’ve been to the crayon stations, set up a melt-and-mold afternoon at home with broken crayons and a silicone tray, with an adult running the oven.
- Keep a build log. A notebook of sketches and photos turns a string of outings into one long project. It’s also the best record of how much they grow over a winter.
The Winter Plan, in Short
Pick one place to climb, one to make things and one quiet room for the youngest, and rotate them through the cold months. Between visits, let the kids rebuild what they saw. A Minneapolis winter is long, but it’s a very good season for building.
