How To Create Your Own State-Of-The-Art Backyard Playground

A reader asked, "If I have $200 to make my backyard look a little more like your school playground, what should I get?"

First off, $200 is a pretty good budget for a project like that, mainly because most of the coolest stuff we have in our outdoor classroom we acquired at little or no cost. 

So here are some suggestions:

Sand or at least someplace for digging. Backyard sandboxes are great, but they're often really too small and too shallow for growing kids. When our community has created playgrounds, we always talk about "full body" sand pits. Sand, while not terribly expensive (around here we get about 60 lbs. for $3), could eat up that whole budget, however, but setting aside a digging area involving just regular dirt is an acceptable alternative.

And, of course, you'll need shovels, pails, and other tools. We use cheap plastic ones. We've tried metal, but galvanized steel buckets are heavier when full and tend to get bent out of shape quite easily in our rough and tumble environment. We do own some metal shovels, rakes, and hoes, but they aren't for day-to-day use even though they would probably make the work go easier. The reason is that our shovels are as often used as "weapons" as for digging, and while they both hurt, getting accidentally brained by a plastic shovel is generally preferred over being brained by a metal one.

Our two-level sandpit wouldn't be itself without a cast iron water pump. You can get a new one for under $50. Our's is mounted on a board that rests atop an inexpensive 30-gallon plastic tub that serves as our cistern. We drilled holes in the lid for the uptake pipe and for a hose to refill it when it's empty.

A natural extension of the pump, of course, are lengths of guttering. Ours are cut into 6-foot sections although we have a couple 10-footers stashed away for special uses. If you spend more than $200 on a pump set up, you've spent too much.

Using the gutters as loose parts is much preferred over a permanent installation. Not only does that allow kids to change the direction and flow of water as their needs demand, but we can use the gutters for other purposes, like down at the art station where we employ them in painting on adding machine tape with balls, mini-pumpkins, and/or toy cars and trucks.

Much of the stuff that makes our space "look" the way it does are things on which you really shouldn't have to spend anything. You can usually pick up logs and tree rounds, for instance, from a neighbor who has recently removed a tree or done some major pruning. Tree services will often give you some if they know its for kids.

Our two boats have both been donations. You just have to get the word out and wait.

It's important to remember, I think, that nothing lasts forever. It's good for kids to spend time playing on, with, and around things that are in various stages of deterioration. So when we got our new metal boat, we simply left the old, rotting, wooden one in place, where it is slowly "sinking" into the sand.

And speaking of loose parts, you shouldn't have to spend a penny on those.

Most of the toys, broken things, cartons, containers, boxes, and whatnot that we're ready to toss out, spend at least a little time in the outdoor classroom before reaching their final resting place in the dumpster.

"Loose parts" is just another name for junk.

Counted among our favorite loose parts are those larger bits that can be hoisted about by teams of kids.

Planks are incredibly versatile.

Ours range in length from 4-8 feet. These have all been donated by families and others looking to make space in their garages.

It's best if you can get new wood without a lot of knots in it: kids really like to experiment with the springy nature of the planks. Some of these have lasted us 3+ years being outdoors year round.

Shipping pallets are a great addition to planks. Ours were all acquired for free. We used to just grab them from the side of the road, but since learning that there can be some chemical and biological hazards associated with pallets, we've started making sure to only use those that are stamped with "HT," which stands for "heat treated." You don't want the chemically treated pallets around kids. We also avoid pallets that have been used to transport food products.

Old car tires are also staples around our place.

And we have a couple of galvanized steel garbage cans. They not only make great, loud, "thunder drums" and hidey-holes, but we often commander them as impromptu table tops.

Other free and inexpensive things we like to have around include brooms . . .

. . . ropes . . .

. . . pulleys . . .

. . . chains . . .

. . . roles of plastic fencing . . .

. . . pvc pipe . . .

. . . old bicycle inner tubes (in this case, we used them to make a sort of catapult) . . .

. . . pipe insulation . . .

. . . cardboard boxes . . .

. . . hoops . . .

. . . stick ponies . . .

. . . chalk . . .

. . . and lots of stuff to just bang on.

As far as more permanent things, I think it's nice to have some sort of playhouse. Again, ours was a donation from a family whose kids had outgrown it, although one of our grandfathers is building us a new one as we speak. A playhouse can be as simple as a cardboard box, however.

It's also nice to have some sturdy tables and chairs. We've purchased ours and they were quite a bit outside the $200 price range, but that's because we're a preschool with over 65 kids playing out there every day. Cheaper stuff, and even cast-off items with the legs cut down will work for backyard purposes. You can often find workable stuff at Goodwill.

And our space simply would not be what it is without a garden. Ours is just a collection of raised beds, but you don't even need that. 

Pots, soil and few seeds will suffice.

We've also re-puposed an old sensory table as a compost/worm bin. 

None of these things are expensive and that's how a child's play space should be. If there is any great truth about an outdoor classroom it's that it should be continually evolving and adapting, a hodge podge of old and new and everything in between. I am not exaggerating when I say that we acquired everything discussed in these photos for not a lot more than $200, other than the furniture and the sand, although there are work-arounds for both of those. If you're just outfitting a backyard, you can probably do it all for less.

That said, it's a backyard, which implies neighbors. As educational as these kinds of spaces are for children, these wonderlands of loose parts, dirt, rocks and compost, these bastions of junkyard chic, they are often perceived as eyesores by the uninitiated. Before going too far, you might want to save up to build a fence.

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"Be Like a Child and Make-Believe"

The three girls were in a sort of irritable stew. They were bickering with one another like it was a stereotypical family holiday dinner, moping, whining, and fussing.

How do you get yourself to a point of believing? Start make-believing. Be like a child, and make-believe. Act as if you have it already. As you make-believe, you will begin to believe you have received.  ~Rhonda Byrne

One of them began to spin in circles, at first, it seemed, in frustration. The other two stepped back, wary, but still sparring over some fine point. The spinning girl began to chant, "I'm having fun now . . . I'm having fun now . . . I'm having fun now . . ."

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not . . . Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.  ~William James

 
The other girls continued debating over some finer point of their play until one of them began to stomp away. As she did, she passed closely by her spinning friend who reached out and grabbed her arm. She stopped spinning for a moment to look into her face to say, "I'm having fun now." The two started to laugh, then spin together, their chant now altered to reflect a new reality: "We're having fun now . . . We're having fun now . . . We're having fun now . . ."

Humans acquire a particular quality by acting a certain way.  ~Aristotle

Now there were two girls spinning together, chanting feverishly, wildly. One girl was still holding on to her irritability, still trying to get the others to listen to her whinge, but they were too busy having fun to hear her. She stood outside the "fun" for a moment in silence. Then she made a choice; I saw it in her face, and she too began to to spin and chant, "We're having fun now . . . We're having fun now . . . We're having fun now . . ."

And they made-believe until they were.

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"Now Slice Me Up For Dinner, Dearie"

(Fairy tales) tell children what they unconsciously know -- that human nature is not innately good, that conflict is real, that life is harsh before it is happy -- and thereby reassure them about their own fears and their own sense of self. ~Arthur Schlesinger

Three girls were playing together on the outdoor stage. I approached just as a fourth girl asked them, "Can I play with you?"

This is tricky question to ask around a preschool because the knee-jerk answer is most often "No." Normally, I advise kids struggling to enter into an established play group to start by asking, "What are you playing?" or to simply state, "I'm going to play with you," or best of all, to simply drop to your knees and start playing. It still doesn't always work, of course, but I've noticed that kids who approach others like this are far more likely to have success.

In this case, however, one of the girls answered, "Sure, if you want to be an evil unicorn."

"I'll be an evil unicorn."

The girls then continued where they left off with both me and the newcomer listening on.

"Okay, pretend I'm on the bridge and you come along and push me off."

From what I could gather, the girl asking to be pushed off was a good unicorn. For the most part, she was directing the evil unicorns in how to torment her. They pretended to push her off the planks of wood they had arranged as a bridge, then she said, "Okay, now pretend you're going to roast me for dinner."

There was an old bicycle tire on the stage. The good unicorn knelt down in it. One of the evil unicorns held a couple of florist marbles. She put them on the good unicorn's back, saying, "These are so you'll taste better when we eat you."

"I'm already going to taste good."

"Yes you will, dearie, but these jewels will make you taste even better."

The evil unicorns went through some motions around their roast while the newest evil unicorn looked on, still studying the game before leaping in.

After a few seconds, the roast popped up, "I'm done now. Now you have to wash me off." She retrieved a faucet set up (a spigot with hot and cold knobs mounted on a board) that has somehow appeared on the playground this year. The evil unicorns used it like a hose. Then the good unicorn said, "Pretend the bridge is the table and you're going to slice me up." She walked out on the bridge again and curled up under the spigot, repeating, "Now slice me up for dinner, dearie."

At first, the good unicorns used the sides of their hands to pantomime slicing, then one of them said, "Pretend I'm going to slice you with my staff," referring to the large stick she had been wielding. They were interrupted by the newcomer calling out, "I don't want to be an evil unicorn. I want to be a good unicorn!"

"Okay, if you're a good unicorn then we're going to have to roast you for dinner. Get in the oven." The newly be-monikered good unicorn dutifully took her spot within the circle of the bicycle tire.

"But first you have to eat me," insisted the other good unicorn.

"Don't worry, dearie, we'll eat you first."

Then the newest good unicorn called out, "And eat me too!"

"Of course, dearie, of course."

******

 

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What We Did With A Stranger's Gift

This is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage. The fields made a gift of berries to us and we made a gift of them to our father. The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes.  ~Robin Wall Kimmerer

Woodland Park's playground is behind a fence on a hill that leads to one of Seattle's most beloved curiosities, the Fremont Troll. This means that there is a steady stream of pedestrians passing our front gates and it gave us the idea to try to sell things to them. We started years ago with lemonade on a hot day. I figured that not only would it be good, old fashioned fun, but it would also be a way to connect to our wider community, and maybe it would feed, or even spark, the entrepreneurial spirit in at least some of the kids.

My own childhood lemonade stands had not gone well because of an extreme lack of adult foot traffic along my cul-de-sac heading no where. I anticipated, however, that a relatively busy location like the one we have in front of our school, had the potential of turning into a gold mine. I imagined it would be a kind of honey trap. How could anyone possibly say "no" to preschoolers? Making money wasn't, of course, the goal, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. What really interested me was this opportunity for the kids to learn a little something about supply and demand.

I first introduced the idea of the lemonade stand to the four and five year olds who enthusiastically began planning. We tried making lemonade from real lemons, which was a fun project, but if we were going to make enough to sell we would need more juice than our little arms could produce, so opted for a powdered product. I thought of this as our first economic lesson. We made advertising signs and had a long discussion about both pricing and what we were going to do with all the money we were going to make. I tried to stay out of these discussions as much as possible and had to bite my tongue when they agreed on a price of $5 per cup. I told myself they would learn soon enough that cute might sell, but not at $5 per cup. It was easier to stay mum about their plan to use the profits to fund a water park.

That first day, everyone wanted to man the stand, so we took turns in shifts of four. I was probably as excited as the kids as we waited there on the sidewalk, staring down our first prospective customer as he trudged up the hill toward us. He raised his eyebrows at the price tag, but chugged it down nevertheless, then purchased a second cup. This clearly wasn't an act of commerce on this strangers part, but rather one of gift giving. 

After this auspicious beginning, we hit some cold, hard, reality with our next prospective customer, an older woman who balked at the price. "That's too expensive!"

"That's okay," one of the children told her, handing her a cup, "You can have it for free!"

Another act of gift giving. 

And that's how our lemonade stand went. We sold those first two cups, then gave away at least 40. Not everyone accepted our free lemonade. Some brushed by us brusquely, not wanting to be bothered. Most, however, had their "sales resistance" overwhelmed by the children's innate generosity; their interpretation of commerce as an essentially social interaction. That first customer's gift, a stranger's gift, had rippled outward through us to everyone who came after him.

Scholar and writer Lewis Hyde writes, "It is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people."

As we were packing up one of the Fremont neighborhood's many resident street people paused where our table had been. One of the girls said, "We're closed, but you can come back tomorrow." The man stared at the sidewalk. It was not clear that he even knew we were there. When he didn't reply, the girl said, "That's okay if you don't have any money. The lemonade's free!" When he still didn't reply, she handed him the two $5 bills with which the first man had paid us, "Here's some money. Now you can buy two lemonades tomorrow!"

As the man shuffled away, the money clutched in his fist, one of the kids objected, "We were going to use that money for a water park."

"That's okay," the girl said, "We can get more money tomorrow."

******

 

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"Else We Shall Most Assuredly Hang Separately"

We must hang together gentlemen . . . else we shall most assuredly hang separately. ~Benjamin Franklin

Happy Independence Day! And “happy” is the appropriate greeting for the day. The Declaration of Independence was the first historical instance of the word "happiness" appearing in the founding documents of any nation.

Yesterday in 1776, 56 men signed their names to this radical document. As a result they were, without trial, proclaimed traitors by the government and sentenced to death. These were middle class people. John Hancock was the wealthiest among them and he was not even a millionaire by today's standards. The wealthy sided with the king. Most of the signers were working people -- farmers and tradesmen primarily. None of them left behind a family fortune, or a foundation, or any other kind of financial memorial of their lives. Our nation is their legacy.

Their average age was 33 (Thomas Jefferson's age at the time). The youngest was only 20-years-old. The oldest was Benjamin Franklin, who was 83.

As a result of having signed the Declaration of Independence, all 56 of the signers were forced to flee their homes. Twelve returned to find only rubble.

As a result of having signed the Declaration of Independence, 17 of them were wiped out financially by the British government.

As a result of having signed the Declaration of Independence, many of them were captured and tortured, or their families were imprisoned, or their children were taken from them. Nine of them died and 4 of them lost their children.

As I read the Declaration of Independence, as I do each July 4, I find myself in awe of their courage. They were all aware of the likely consequences, but they did what they knew must be done. Two centuries later, I still feel the outrage they must have felt as I read through the specific governmental abuses that lead them to that critical moment.

Even more than our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence is the beginning point for the United States of America. I find it both educational and inspirational to return to the source before heading out for fireworks.

When Franklin was asked what kind of nation they were forming, he answered, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

I worry at times that we won't be able to keep it, that, in fact, we've already lost it. I worry that too many of us have declared our independence not from tyrants, but from one another, not understanding that in creating a constitutional government of, by, and for we the people, we were also declaring our interdependence.

At the signing to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Franklin famously said, "We must hang together gentlemen . . . else we shall most assuredly hang separately." 

And while we come together to commemorate our independence from tyranny, this is also a day for embracing our fellow countrymen, for celebrating our interdependence. In that direction lies happiness.

******

The free live portion of Teacher Tom's Play Summit is over, but it's still not too late to join Wendy, Lisa Murphy, Akilah Richards, Maggie Dent, Raffi, Suzanne Axelsson, Peter Gray and the rest of us. What if the whole world understood the power of trusting children with the freedom to play, to explore their world, to ask and answer their own questions? What if everyone respected their right to learn in their own way, on their own time? What if we remembered that children must have their childhoods and that means playing, and lots of it? Every one of these people are professionals who have placed children first. You will walk away from this event transformed, informed, challenged, and inspired to create a world that respects children and sets them free to learn and grow. Together we can, as presenter Raffi sings, "Turn this world around!"

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

"We're Using This Treasure!"

We've made rules in our classroom, together, by consensus, and among the first agreements we made with one another was, "No taking things from other people," an echo of the Biblical commandment to not steal. There are anthropologists who argue that prior to the advent of the Agricultural Revolution around 10,000 BC there was no such thing as "stealing" because there was no such thing as property, but, I expect, the urge to snatch some rare or special thing from the hands of another, if only to take a closer look, was still an urge with which our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed to deal. And that's really what we're usually talking about in preschool. Stealing implies taking something with the intention of illicitly and selfishly transferring ownership while snatching falls more into the category of uncontrollable curiosity.

Whatever the case, in our modern world these two distinct urges get lumped together, especially in the minds of young children who, through their play, are forever attempting to tease out both personal and social meaning. Yesterday, a group of boys were huddled together in a corner of the playground they have "built" for themselves.

"Guys, guys, I got a plan. We need to take those jewels."

"What jewels?"

"Those guys, over there, they have a bucket of treasure and we need it for our team."

They were referring to their friends, boys with whom they often play, but who were on this day playing separately. They had spent the past half hour or so collecting small shiny objects in a bucket. They were bits and bobs that anyone can pick up from the ground around our place -- florist marbles, beads, pieces of toy jewelry -- but they had named it "treasure" and now it was this treasure that these other boys were scheming to make their own.

There were a few moments of intense conversation, quiet, secretive. I couldn't hear their words, but their intentions were clear: they were planning an incursion to wrest control of that bucket, which they were going to hide and hoard somewhere in their hideout. Before long they attacked running toward the boys with the treasure, whooping, making fierce faces, wielding sticks like weapons.

The boys with the treasure looked confused at first, backing away a bit.

"We're going to take your treasure!"

"No, you're not! It's our treasure!"

The moment was tense as the two sides stood face to face. These guys have often played fighting games together, but I know these children, I've taught most of them for three years. Physical violence wasn't in the offing even as their bodies, tense and aggressively posed, seemed to indicate it. It was a moment both real and pretend, this stand-off above the sand pit. I recall moments like this from my own childhood. I knew their hearts were racing. I know that some of them at least were feeling that they were now in over their heads, that they didn't really want to "steal," but just to snatch, to see and feel and hold the treasure that these other boys had made from debris that had always been there.

It lasted a few seconds as everyone stood posed, then one of the attackers dropped to his knees, dropping out, and began running his fingers through the sand. Then one of the defenders backed away, turning his back. One by one by one I saw their shoulders drop as the tension left their bodies, leaving only two boys still standing in opposition to one another, while the others milled around no longer part of the game.

"We're using this treasure!" the defender said forcefully. "You can use it when we're finished!"

"Okay!" his friend answered from under his glowering brow as if making a threat, "We will!"

And then it was over, the aspiring robbers returning to their base, apparently satisfied with waiting for their booty and the treasure collectors once more scouring the ground for sparkling items to add to their cache.

******

 

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And Not Some Day, But Right Now

One of Woodland Park's traditions is to celebrate "special days." These special days are often connected to birthdays and they involve bringing in a collection of photos mounted on a piece of cardboard. The photos could be of anything, but the idea was to share about your life. Typically, the child sits on our "special day throne" and talks us through the photos of people, places, and things they love. The photo boards are then hung in the classroom for a period of weeks, giving everyone a chance to ask questions.

The kids had all gone outside, leaving me alone in front of one of these special boards with the child's mother. We were chuckling over the fact that her daughter had insisted upon representing her both of parents with photos from their own childhoods. 

"I was 14 in that picture," she told me. We were looking at a grainy snapshot of a young woman standing under a shade tree, smiling at the photographer. "Look at me. I was so . . ." She paused in mid-sentence searching for the word she wanted to use. "I was so normal. I thought I was fat, but look at me. I wasn't fat at all. I've told myself I was fat my whole life, but I wasn't. And now I am."

It didn't strike me as an odd confession because these are the kinds of conversations one has around the cooperative. When you're raising children in a community, openness is natural. 

"It was a self-fulfilling prophecy."

It's a story that lots of us learn to tell about ourselves, a tale of not living up to cultural ideals, of falling short, of not being normal. Indeed, I don't believe I've ever met anyone whose self-talk is about being normal. I wonder, should such a person exist, would they be the most or least mentally healthy person on earth? It's an interesting question because, when I look around the preschool, when I look around at the wider world, I see that normal is definitely not normal. Or rather, maybe normal is only a story we can tell ourselves about ourselves in the past tense as this mother was doing as we looked at that smiling 14-year-old. "I was so normal," she said. What she didn't say was, "And now I'm not," but she implied it when she said, "And now I am."

Most of what we think of as reality is, at bottom, stories we tell ourselves. Money, gender, race, and property are as much stories as Cinderella, Star Wars, or Wuthering Heights, the only difference is that, as a culture, we've labeled the former as facts, while dismissing the latter as fiction.

When a child tells me, in all earnestness, that he is a fairy or she is a superhero, who am I to say that their story isn't true? Should I worry that this child is self-deluded? Should I laugh at their cute innocence? Or should I listen with my whole self to these prophetic stories? It seems impossible that a child would grow into an adult fairy or superhero, but maybe that's only because my own stories are so damned normal. Or maybe it's because I falsely believe the story about time, the one that tells me to look to the future for truth, as if a child only exists as a prospective adult. Maybe that blinds me to the non-fiction of right now, which is, at least around the preschool, a place that is always well-populated with fairies and superheroes.

 

This, I think, is the great power of Learning Stories, the model of "assessment" that Wendy Lee told us about at Teacher Tom's Play Summit. It's an acknowledgement of the transformative power of stories. These are stories that adults tell about the children in their lives, focused on strengths, rather than deficits. They are hero stories, full of quests and magic, told to the child about the child, and read to them over and over until they can read them for themselves. They are stories of being anything but normal, of being exceptional, and not at some point in the future, but right now. 

As Wendy tells us, these stories live on to be told to children, grandchildren, and, I've no doubt, grandchildren. These stories make no promises about a fictional future, but rather tell us about the non-fiction of an ever-present now, in which each child, each human is, in this moment, becoming themself, be that a fairy, superhero, or whatever else one aspires to be. And not some day, but right now.

******

The free live portion of Teacher Tom's Play Summit is over, but it's still not too late to join Wendy, Lisa Murphy, Akilah Richards, Maggie Dent, Raffi, Suzanne Axelsson, Peter Gray and the rest of us. What if the whole world understood the power of trusting children with the freedom to play, to explore their world, to ask and answer their own questions? What if everyone respected their right to learn in their own way, on their own time? What if we remembered that children must have their childhoods and that means playing, and lots of it? Every one of these people are professionals who have placed children first. You will walk away from this event transformed, informed, challenged, and inspired to create a world that respects children and sets them free to learn and grow. Together we can, as presenter Raffi sings, "Turn this world around!"

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!