Things To Do With Your Kids: Outdoor Play With A Geometric Climbing Dome

Apr 20, 2020

4 min read

Spring is finally here and if you’re anything like us you are wanting to spend more and more time outside in your backyard with your kids. With social distancing – and in many places lockdown – still in effect because of COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to make your homes a place you want to be, not only for yourselves but also for your kids. One of our main focuses this spring, summer and fall, will be to spend lots of time in our yards and to that end, I’m going to write a series of posts about things you can do with your kids in the backyard.

First up comes from a post on Instagram I made that got SO MUCH response I had to do an entire blog post about it; It’s the Geometric Climbing Dome.

Geometric Climbing Dome

Ours is the Lifetime Geometric Climbing Dome. We got ours from Costco, but you can also order it directly from the Lifetime website. Additionally, Canadian Tire has a similar one which you can see here.

Lastly, Amazon is always an option. They have the exact same Lifetime one available, but it was so ridiculously priced (almost triple what we paid and almost triple the Canadian Tire one) that I’m not even going to list it here. They do have this Cool Geometric Dome

though, that is a bit more expensive than the others, but also has a bit more to it.

We decided to get a geometric climbing dome for a couple of reasons. One, “big body play,” is important for kids. Two, Clara has always LOVED climbing, and this is a relatively safe way to allow her to do that. Sure, there is still the possibility of getting hurt, but as I’ve mentioned before, you should let your kids do “dangerous” things.

Jane and Clara working on building the geometric climbing dome

Review of the Lifetime Geometric Climbing Dome

So what do we think of it?

So far we love it. Clara has spent countless hours climbing on it. She’s even asked to go into the backyard by herself to practice climbing (all while singing the Daniel Tiger song “Grr, Grr, Grr out loud. Just keep trying, and you’ll feel proud!” It’s adorable). Jane, AKA Dashing Mom, has also taken a liking to it and can be found swinging upside down from it as I type this.

Assembly took us a couple of hours. It’s doable to put it together by yourself, but I’d definitely recommend doing it as a team.

She’s three and a half and at first couldn’t figure out how to get up onto the bars because they’re a bit too tall to make it super easy. But after some initial frustration she quickly figured a way to make it work for her and within 24 hours had figured out how to climb all the way to the top.

I was a bit worried that it would kill the grass wherever it sat. This is certainly something that can happen if you don’t move it regularly, but it’s easy to move with just one person. It’s not light – as it needs to be sturdy enough to have kids climbing all over it, but with some muscle, it’s easy to move from place-to-place.

Jane showing Clara how it’s done

Ways to use your Geometric Climbing Dome

For the kids, we bought a saucer swing that we have hung from the middle of the dome. They love to swing and climb in it and it has also become a fort a number of times.

My wife, being the brilliant woman that she is, also bought a camping hammock

that we strung up in the middle of the dome and boy has that been a hit. Clara prefers to swing in it rather than lying quietly in it, but who can blame her. Personally, I love lying in it, while Clara climbs around me. We have the ability to string it up in our yard, between two trees as well, so I think that may be its future home.

As the weather gets nicer we also plan on using the geometric climbing dome as a makeshift tent for an outdoor sleepover. We don’t own an actual tent, so this makes a perfect place to have an outdoor campout.

Lastly, as all the snow melts in our yard (yes we still have snow), I plan on making an obstacle course for Clara. Follow me on Instagram to see how that turns out!

Kids swing for climbing dome

Recall Notice

Luckily our dome was not affected, but Lifetime Products Inc. is recalling the Lifetime Climbing Dome, Model 101301, item 1010787 with Product ID 2002027 (product made in Taiwan). The impacted item was sold between February 28, 2020 and March 24, 2020 on Costco.ca. Only climbing domes with Product ID 2002027 and Made in Taiwan are impacted by this recall.

The surface coating applied on the metal bars of the structure may contain barium in excess of regulated limits. Some forms of barium can be toxic, causing adverse health effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and cramps, as well as more severe symptoms.

Lifetime Products Inc. has not received reports of incidents involving the issue of concern.

You can find the complete recall information here.