Things to Do in Little Rock

Inside The Wonder Place’s 5,700 square-foot indoor play space, colored balls and scarves shoot through spiraling tubes. Stuffed animals await vaccinations in the vet's office, and tables covered in water and sand become interactive landscapes. The playhouse's supervising staffers encourage their visitors, generally aged 8 and younger, to explore freely as they engage in imaginative play.

Kids slip down slides and scale a rock-climbing wall at the tree house, and build towers and obstacle courses for toy balls using square blocks and ramps at Wonder Works. A child-sized stage lets them perform their own plays or reenact Hamlet with puppets using costumes and set pieces, and an art area sets them loose with a menagerie of art supplies. Infants and toddlers frolic in a designated play area, filled with smaller play structures and toys. While kids can make pretend meals using pretend produce and haggle with pretend cashiers at the River Market and Cafe, there's also a real, health-focused vending machine. An onsite gift shop peddles educational toys and puzzles from brands such as eeboo, Melissa & Doug, and Manhattan Toy.

On a January night in 1959, some 600 people packed into the Hotel Marion ballroom for the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame's inaugural induction banquet. The freshly minted organization was to honor the best-of-the-best from the Natural State–individuals who had achieved athletic greatness, and exhibited strong character and leadership along the way. Since that evening more than five decades ago, the Hall of Fame has continued to swell with new members, adding to a trophy case of inductees that already includes the likes of Brooks Robinson, Pat Summerall, and Jerry Jones.