Wow! Check out this great new video about a great new project we are working on in the city of Portland, OR. My playscape partner Leon Smith is leading it and working with loads of kids on the design doing field trips, brainstorming, drawings, model building and more. Exciting stuff!!
playscape workshops
Brooklyn Swarm Build TIMELAPSE!
Hee hee – fun times in the big city. Here a group of spirited volunteers got together to plant themselves a hillslide. Nice! Shoveling, pickaxing, gathering free woodchips from a local cemetery, light carpentry and heavy comradery added up to a fun day of work and a great new 4′ hillslide planted in the community’s sweet children’s play courtyard. Yeah!
East Tennessee SWARM BUILD
Here we are: another volunteer community “Swarm Build” — this one at the East Tennessee State University Child Study Center in Johnson City, TN. Fun! We timed it to fit in with the ETSU Early Childhood conference and offered conference-goers a chance to step away from the air-conditioned conference center, put on work clothes, roll up their sleeves, and add some great new features to an already neat outdoor playscape. Together we planted new plants, added bamboo vine climbing poles to an arbor, constructed a boulder-marble-concrete water feature (complete with a kid-controlled water barrel trickle), and created a beautiful tile mosaic mural on a long concrete block wall. Check it out:
ETSU Swarm Build from rusty keeler on Vimeo.
Earthplay Summer Camp 2012!!!!!
Calgary Soaring
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My springtime adventures began with a trip to a very special school in Calgary, Alberta Canada. I was invited to lead a natural play workshop for teachers and staff at Renfrew Education Services — a five-site school that specializes in children with special needs, preK through teen who’s moto is “helping kids soar”. The facilities are amazing, the staff is incredible, and the dedication to children’s growth and development is inspiring. Families of children with special needs from all over Canada move to Calgary so their children can attend this wonderful school. I was honored to be asked to present ideas to this group. It was especially moving for me because my own brother Lance (who had special needs) in the last year of his life attended a school much like Renfrew. I know what a positive impact a place like this can have on children and their families.
The first part of my trip was to visit all five sites to observe children and meet with staff to find out their dreams, concerns, and hopes for adding nature and natural elements to their yards and classrooms. I saw some amazing stuff happening—from HUGE sand boxes INSIDE the classrooms, to “cubby cubes” for kids to cuddle inside of, to high tech multi-sensory “snoezelen” therapy rooms. The next day was the workshop day to brainstorm ideas, show pictures, and dream about how to add natural elements to the children’s lives. We even brought in loads of fresh herbs from the grocery store and teachers picked, plucked and mashed them together until the room was a rich, enticing herbal sensory delight. Maybe kids could work with herbs in the same way…
Then I had a day to play and was able to visit the gorgeous Canadian Rocky mountains—only 1-1/2 hours from downtown Calgary. First stop Banff and the Banff Springs Hotel. Then a nice hike to take in the mountain views. Then on to Lake Louise for some sun, snow, and high peaks.
Did I mention my surprise moose sighting??