By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Jul 07, 2014 at 1:30 PM

We all have fond memories of summer fun on school playgrounds (don't we?). This year, Milwaukee school playgrounds are back open offering a wide range of free fun for city kids.

I can remember one summer when the high school near my house opened up for the summer and was flooded with kids who played baseball on the field, swam in the pool, shot hoops in the gym. It was a blast and the stuff of which memories are made.

This summer, Milwaukee Recreation has 27 free summer playgrounds up and running throughout Milwaukee, offering a wide variety of structured and supervised activities for kids ages 6 through 17.

In addition to free meals, there are wading pools and powerful sprinklers, arts and crafts, organized games of all kinds, special events and contests. There are also some field trips, which require fees, to places like Milwaukee County Zoo, Jelly Belly in Kenosha, Stonefire Pizza and Cool Waters.

You can get detailed info at MilwaukeeRecreation.net/playgrounds

Recently, Milwaukee Rec share some historical photos with me and I picked some to share.

Your kids could choose to do this, though I suspect it only provides a few minutes', or maybe even a few seconds' worth of fun...

It's kind of retro, but maybe they'll even get a game of marbles going...

Maybe they'll read. Mine would...

I'd be willing to bet there will be absolutely nothing like this...

At the end of summer, they'll be smiling like (most of) these kids...

If these newfangled moving pictures are more your style ...

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.