Douglas County Libraries' playscapes are museum-quality, interactive indoor spaces designed to give children a break from technology and inspire imaginative play and self-guided learning. DCL provides the pieces to spur the imagination, and kids create their own play.
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Castle Pines – Little Letters Post Office
The Little Letters Post Office features playful facets of a real-life post office, including a stand-alone mail delivery truck.
Kids can act out the different aspects of mail processing and delivery from both the postal worker and consumer end using their imaginations and provided play materials, equipment, and devices.
They can also dress up in provided postal employee uniforms to accept packages and mail, weigh the items, ring them up on the cash register, place them on the conveyor belt, and sort them into mail slots.
Castle Rock – The Ranch
Kids can rustle up ranch-size fun using a variety of interactive play materials and equipment in this play space sponsored by the Rotary Club of Castle Rock.
The Ranch features a stand-alone barn where young cowpokes can tend to horses, cows, and other animals and a conveyor belt to move hay bales into the barn. The tractor provides endless imaginative play, featuring an actual gear shift and movable steering wheel, while the mini grain silo is perfect for a ranch hand's respite or reading.
Kids can plant and harvest vegetables and flowers in the garden, dress up in provided ranch wear, play ring toss on the bull horns, and much more. They will also have fun running cars along two hills affixed to the wall adjacent to the Ranch.
Highlands Ranch – Healthy Critters Vet Clinic
Healthy Critters Vet Clinic, sponsored by PetVet 365 Highlands Ranch, is the perfect place for kids to explore the fascinating world of veterinary care for creatures great and small.
Young vets can don lab coats and stethoscopes to check in plushie pet patients, complete examinations using play instruments, diagnose patients at the X-ray station and light box, groom a horse’s mane and tail, and more.
Lone Tree – Little Savers Bank and Market
The Little Savers Bank and Market, sponsored by Bellco Credit Union, offers an ideal space for kids to discover hidden treasures in safe deposit boxes, receive deposits at the teller window, explore the wonders of a pneumatic tube, play vault Plinko, learn about balancing using tabletop scales, ring up transactions at the market register, and more, blending fun with early financial literacy through play.
Parker – Plants & Pollinators
Kids will be buzzing with excitement to play in this interactive play space, sponsored by Tagawa Gardens.
Imaginations soar as children learn about the plant-pollinator system through hands-on playtime in the apple play house, which features a specimen table for insect observation.
Busy little bees can have fun exploring the world of bees and playing beekeeper in our realistic beekeeping station, complete with materials for role play and dress up. Crawl through the caterpillar, spin the blossoms, and more while learning about this fascinating ecosystem.
Roxborough – Mission Control
Kids get an out-of-this-world play experience at Mission Control in Roxborough!
The space-themed playscape features a stand-alone rocket and other playful facets of a mission control room where imaginations can soar.
Kids can dress up in spacesuits, climb aboard the rocket, run a "systems check," and prepare for blast-off using their creativity and the provided play materials, equipment, and devices.
