They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

“…children are disappearing from the outdoors at a rate that would make the top of any conservationist’s list of endangered species if they were any other member of the animal kingdom.”

Ecologist, Gill (2005)

 I have been quite sick the last bit, but the silver lining of this is I have been able to read and study things that have been gathering dust on a shelf in the back of my brain for years. I have felt free to contemplate everything from how to build clear geodesic earthquake pedestrian shelters in Seattle to what is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe? My most recent scrutiny: Outdoor Play Structures.

I have never liked the rigid, static, limited use of most school playgrounds. My early childhood experiences tainted me. My first grade school had - honestly - not one blade of grass.  They had paved the entire grounds.  We skinned our knees, played marbles, skipped rope, and got in a lot of fights.  When the weather was bad they'd bring us in the gymn and have us sit on our coats around the perimeter so as not to damage the newly finished wood floors. (!) No talking was allowed. I got in trouble once because I rolled up my coat and pretended it was a baby and encouraged the girl next to me to do the same. The teacher blew the whistle and made me come stand by her.  Playing was much too radical a concept for recess.

Last year everyday on my way to work I watched them build a new elementary school where a dense forest had been. I couldn't help thinking about how much fun the children could have exploring the pine cones, caterpillars, rocks, branches and sounds of the woods. I secretly hoped they were forward thinking enough that they would fence a part of the woods off for the play ground, but of course they didn't.

When our kids were toddlers we had an old woodshed on our property that was simply a covered shanty with a dirt floor and a pile of wood scraps in one corner.  They spent hours in there.  I could watch them from the kitchen window and that place became whatever they wanted it to be. They made mud pies, forts, pirate ships, cannons, cars, castles.... the list was limitless - which is the whole point, isn't it?! One day they were so into it their play that I literally had to pry their freezing little hands off the wood and get them to come in.  Now that's the creative flow all artist's hope to achieve!

So... my advice?  Don't spend  a small fortune on cookie-cutter swing-sets-cum-forts that hold childrens' attention for forty five minutes max. Read some of the studies by child development scientists like Moore and Wong and find out what my husband's parents knew all along:  A couple of big cardboard boxes and some cold cereal for a snack  will entertain a child far longer than any set of metal monkey bars. 
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