Since the kiddos have been spending even more time outdoors and at the wash lately, we’ve started to do some scheduled wash clean up times. Last Friday, after a pretty amazing dance party, the kids went out to the wash to clean it up. The little kiddos stayed behind in their room to decompress a bit after all that dancing and talk about why we should clean up the wash at all: “because there’s people that have been putting trash in the wash and it’s dirty.”
Adrienne asked if it bothered the kids that the wash was dirty. They had different ideas: “Not really, because the trash is in a place where I don’t play.” “[It bothers me] because I can see it. There’s trash all over the place!” It looks like to me that no one is picking up the trash and I don't want the animals to get hurt.” “Or they [the animals] might die if they swallow glass.” “To me it looks like a junkyard.” “Junkyards are awesome because you can use all the stuff.” I was struck by this last comment and it got me thinking about the kinds of spaces that children play and what is so special about our wash. There are many contemporary play scholars and researchers who have been writing for a while about the benefits of children’s free play in spaces like adventure playgrounds. These playgrounds have lots of loose parts that the children can manipulate and often no structured play equipment. Rather, they look kind of like junkyards as the kids described above. In these spaces, the kids are not so much playing with garbage, but things they can engage with in a variety of ways, and use in pretend and exploratory play. Our wash is full of these kinds of objects: rocks, leaves, sticks, and perhaps some non-natural unexpected finds too. These are the kinds of spaces where children’s play can flourish. And kids understand this. As they said, junkyards are awesome! We know that it’s not really the “junk” that entices them, but the freedom and openness of space and materials. And our wash provides such a wonderful example of this space. It’s great to see the kids value their space enough to take care of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_playground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwork
1 Comment
Charles Manes
12/21/2016 06:22:07 am
Maybe the children could raise money for REAL play equipment! Apply for grants maybe to earn money for swings, monkey bars etc. it could teach them some economical skills?
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