Saturday, February 27, 2010

But Are We The Beatles or The Beach Boys?

Legend has it that The Beatles' great album Rubber Soul inspired The Beach Boys' greater album Pet Sounds which in turn inspired The Beatles' even greater album St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The same dynamic seems to be emerging between the preschool at the Kinma School near Sydney, Australia and our own Woodland Park Cooperative Preschools in Seattle, USA, without the glamor, of course, of there being international pop stars involved. Although, both schools do lay claim to our own distinctive followings of adoring, screaming fans in the form of our students.

Jenny, Kinma's preschool teacher, once commented that this blog was one of her inspirations to start her own blog. Her ongoing investigation of outdoor play, playgrounds, and fairy gardens, in turn, got Woodland Park going on its Little World Experiment as well as its own playground improvement project. Our Little World experiments have in their place inspired Jenny to begin her own little world explorations. And now Jenny's post about a real dump truck delivering sand to Kinma's sand pit, is reflected like a mirror image at Woodland Park as we received our own, first, sand delivery yesterday:




You'll note that our sand is being delivered onto a sidewalk instead of a sand pit. This is because we don't yet have a sand pit. That is a project for this morning as a team of dedicated parents are scheduled to descend upon the school, in the drizzly rain, to build one, as well as to install our new coffee bean garden paths, organize our new outdoor construction/tinkering station, prepare our garden for actually growing plants (since our digging/mud activities can henceforward take place in the sand pit), to monkey around with our water station to see if we can relocate and improve it, and to generally revitalize our outdoor play area.

I'm so excited for today that I was out of bed this morning at 4 a.m. like a teenage girl with tickets to the big show. I wonder if Paul will look at me?

Bookmark and Share

8 comments:

Mr. Halpern said...

Paul was always coy... I'm betting Ringo would throw one of this sticks at you though. :)

Unknown said...

EXCITING CHANGES,TOM!!! I'll have to swing bye and check them out sometime soon.

Ms Debbie said...

I cant wait to see the results!

Deborah Stewart said...

I love how we are able to inspire each other and that you were up at 4:30am - that's real inspiration!

Noah said...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (hands up on both sides of head, screaming in total flip-out, fan-crazy shriekiness) PLAYGROUND IMPROVEMENT DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome! I can't wait to hear how it goes, and see the results. I find it really amazing that we can create this loose community rooted in many places and connected through the internet that is so inspiring. I learn so much and am so fed by so many folks out here.
I hope you're all having a great time out there setting up the NEW PLAYGROUND STUFF - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Reservoir Dad said...

Mate, it sounds like a great community and a heap of fun. I'm also looking forward to out first working bee at my son's primary school next week.

Good to see an Aussie school getting a mention!

RD

jenny said...

Awww, got a bit teary reading your post Tom! Its true, I started looking for inspiration on the web and couldn't really find what I was looking for until I found your blog and a couple of others. This search inspired me to create my own blog and I'm so glad I did. I'm continually motivated and inspired and my own learning is going off in all directions because I've people and preschools I found - like you and yours :)

And how funny about the dump truck with the sand? We seem to be doing the same things but one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern! Its a bit like that Seinfeld episode IMO: you know the one, with the summer and winter George and Jerry and Elaine?

Hope you have as much fun with your sand as we had with ours!

Jenny

Unknown said...

How exciting.
I am glad I saw the end result already! So very exciting.