I am reading "Last child in the woods" by Richard Louv and would highly recommend it. It has made me think (amongst many other things) about our school playgrounds. My school has a playground with a climbing wall, seating, football pitch, slides, a brightly couloured play area made with plastic and metal and a wooden play area. Many of the pupils have said to me their playground is boring and as an adult it is hard to understand as they seem to have so much.
After reading this book, I realised that our school playground is all set up for organised play. In Richard's book, there is a quote about it only taking 6 pine trees to make a forest for young children. I remember my own school playground had a huge fallen tree which the school amazingly left on the ground for us to play on. We scaled the root system. bounced on the long trunk and hid behind and under it. It was a base for games, a shelter, a look out and an adventure playground and much more...
There is a lot being done in Scotland at the moment to try and add more natural objects to our playgrounds for free, creative and active play. It's definitely something I will be discussing with my head teacher.
Hi Judy
ReplyDeleteContact Grounds for Learning who've just got funding for a more natural play projects. Also look at the Scrapstore Playpod youtube clip. I've been working with Crimond school on a similar enterprise project with P1-3 which expanded to include the whole school. This is about to be introduced at Inverallochy and Mile End Primary Schools too.
Best wishes
Juliet