Parks of the Woodlands: Cattail Park

Cattail Park is located within Cochran's Crossing, in The Woodlands Township, TX. It is a big community park with restrooms, drinking fountains, a picnic gazebo, tennis courts, basketball courts, soccer fields, a dog park, and a playground. The substrate on the playground was wood mulch.

Here is a link to the official website for this park: https://www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/facilities/facility/details/cattailpark-32

We loved our visit to Cattail Park. There were so many fun things to do here for little kids! While there wasn't much shade on the playground in the middle of the day, there were some shaded benches and a drinking fountain that helped us to stay cool.

 Swings were fun. There were two belt swings for big kids and two bucket swings for babies. The swings were just a little too high off the ground for my 3 year old to climb onto them herself.

 This park has a teeter totter! She sat on one end, then I sat down on the other. When I sat down, she suddenly found herself up much higher in the air! We had fun talking about weight and balance while we used this teeter totter. Again, the play equipment was fairly high off the ground which made it a challenge for her to climb on independently, but she did eventually figure this one out on her own.

 Her favorite piece of equipment at the park was this faded little red bouncy car. She pretended that she was racing around in Lightning McQueen.

 This toucan was another bouncy toy that she really loved. We had to clarify that it wasn't, in fact, a chicken. It was a great opportunity to talk about the diversity of birds and the shapes of their beaks. We even took a little time out to do a little bird watching in the trees nearby.

 Here's a shot of the playground that was designed with younger kids in mind. It has fun slides and easy steps.

 Something to note about this little playset is this great spinny-do-dad with shapes. On one side there was a basic shape, and on the other side was a picture of something they might encounter in their world that was that shape. While the shapes themselves didn't have much texture or bump, the name of each shape was written in Braille.

 Here is another step path up this little playset. She enjoyed pretending she was hopping up the oppositely arranged mint leaves to get to the slide. 

 After warming up on the little playset, she ventured over to the playground that was designed for bigger kids. With so many different ways to wander and tubes to slide and climb through, this playground was a lot of fun for her.

 There is a big twisty slide! She had a lot of fun going down this slide time and time again.

 Here she climbs through one of the straight tubes. She decided to sing a song as she walked through, and she was taken aback by the sound of her voice echoing through the tube. It became an impromptu exercise in acoustics. We chatted about sound waves and how easily they can bounce off hard surfaces.

 Are you looking for a place where your child can physically climb a DNA double helix? Well, this park is your place! She loved the novelty of climbing up a "double twisty ladder" as she dubbed it.

There are monkey bars at this park! And while they're tricky for my 3 year old to attempt on her own, she could at least reach them from the platform.

Also visible in this picture - this park has talk tubes! They were positioned too high for her to reach, but I was still able to talk to her through them.





It was hot! So we took a quick break for some water. With the water fountain so close to the playground, it was easy to stay hydrated on a hot afternoon.

Beside the playground there is a path that leads to the tennis courts. Along the way there are a couple of picnic tables. One picnic table is set up to be wheelchair accessible, but that little gap between the walkway and the slab was honestly a little muddy and hard to navigate. I took a picture of this so in case anyone with a wheelchair decides to visit the park, they can be prepared. I'm sure it wouldn't be much of a problem on a drier day.

Since the tennis court was so close to the playground, we walked in to see what it was like. It's a nicely maintained court, and I love that we can see the playground from the courts. This kind of a setup would be great for big family groups that want to have kids playing on the playground and other kids or adults playing tennis at the same time. You can keep an eye on everyone at once from the picnic tables with these great sight lines.