Fun Activities for My 5 Year Old & I to Do Together ( Dallas, Plano, Frisco )

Watters Creek in Allen has a Lucky Duck club for kids usually on the 2nd Sat of the month and there are fun activities. Last week they had hayrides, pony rides, petting zoo. Sometimes they have balloon artists and face painting. Our group of cheerleaders volunteered last year for the events to help children with arts and crafts and loved it.

We loved going to the Dallas Arboretum. Beautiful flowers, a kid play area, ,you can picnic if you want.

Heard Museum in McKinney has nature trails and some exhibits.

Squiggley's Playhouse in Garland (Beltline/Plano Rd), is a fun place. My daughter is 16 and happened to meet the owners at hobby lobby while she was buying supplies for an upcoming project. She and her friend ended up going to the playhouse to work on their project. They have art classes, pottery wheels, mosiacs and lots of things that are fun!

I've never been here but I've heard there is a place in McKinney called Storybook Farm whith hayrides, gunfights, etc

Dallas Zoo

Celebration Park in Allen has some water sprayers that are fun.

Dallas World Aquarium, Science Place at Fair Park

Wildflower Festival in May (Richardson) is a lot of fun

Balloon Festival in Plano (Sept) is also very good.

Check out the free magazines Dallas Child, etc... they have lots of good ideas.

The Texas Sculpture Garden at Hall office Park in Frisco is great for photos and wandering around. (BONUS: Free)

I know she's a girl, but both Home Depot & Lowes offer a free class on select Saturdays for her to build her own craft. Lowes you must register, HD you just show up. She'll get an apron & a patch everytime she completes a project.

That little cooking school in Frisco on Main looks super neat. I can't wait until mine is old enough.

Sci-Tech in Frisco.

With my little guy, doing things on the cheap was important. We did a lot of day-outings that were really meaningless, but I've found that we created a lot of great memories of our adventures.

We got hopelessly lost at Arbor Hills Nature preserve in Plano. (By Presby)
Though I was hot & frustrated and terrified because I kept going in circles, we had "an adventure" and he LOVED it. (Thank goodness for picnic lunch & bottled water and the kindness of strangers!)

We made trips to the petstore to "visit" the animals.

I got hopelessly lost (again) trying to find the Heard museum to see the dinosaur exhibit. He refers to that as another adventure.

Both the Frisco library & the Plano have storytime, which is entertaining and engaging to each age group.

I needed to get out of the house for my sanity so I bought a dry-erase calendar and scoured Dallas Child & Around Town Kids for activities that were going on in the upcoming month. I would write what was going on everyday + the time. If we woke up & didn't feel like doing anything, then fine, I'd erase it. If we felt like going I already had an agenda half-way planned.
I liked to see the progress of us getting out and it was fun to look back to see what all we had done.
I even wrote in specific chores. Friday was always laundry day, so I knew I didn't need to worry about it until then. No guilt. Etc.

Good luck. I read your other post. Kudos to you for wanting to change it up. It's hard!

Off the top of my head.. There is the Heard Museum in McKinney. SciTech Center in Frisco. There is a website called Around Town Kids that comes out with different things to see and do and places to go. A lot are very cheap and/or free.
There are also some blueberry farms north of Prosper and farms in Celin.