It’s Willow Hut Building Time!
That’s right folks: early spring is the perfect time to plant the willow hut you’ve been dreaming about. If you live in the northern hemisphere this means now! Hooray! Ready to build? Here is the How to Build a Willow Hut piece from my book Natural Playscapes. : ) The best way to get the ...read more
Adventure School meets The Anarchy Zone!
So if you remember, I’ve been working with local friends to create a day-a-week traveling “forest school” for our preschool-age kids — “Adventure School” . Each week we pick a different family’s land to visit where the children can explore, play, create, construct, balance, and build fires. We’ve visited forests in fall, creeks in summer, ...read more
Earthplay Water Tower
Here it is! One of our new Earthplay Water Features: the WATER TOWER! For the past year I’ve been working to create simple, durable water play items that people can add to their natural playscapes. I have a friend with a large stand of Black Locust trees which are perfect for children’s play areas: beefy, ...read more
Montessori PLAYSCAPE DESIGN
Here’s the current project I’m working on at a wonderful Montessori school in Newport News, VA. Located in a business park, the current play area is on top of an asphalt parking lot. Well, let the transformations begin! When I visited earlier this year the kids and staff shared amazing ideas and visions for their ...read more
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 ...read more
Playscape Log Gathering, Community Built Style!
Here’s one way to do it. During a natural playscape build at Faith Childcare and Nursery School in Rochester, NY we had a big space designated as “log climbing area”. Great. But then we needed to get some logs to fill it. We put the word out to parents and sure enough: one dad ...read more
Creekside Adventure School
Gotta love it: learning about the world by being in the world. Up close and personal style. After all the years of dreaming and designing children’s spaces I finally have a child of my own: Julian James Keeler, born Jan 8, 2012. yay! So what’s a new parent to do but dream up an Art ...read more
The ANARCHY ZONE!
Here we go friends….. The Hands-on-Nature ANARCHY ZONE at the Ithaca Children’s Garden! Woohoo!! I am super excited to be teaming up with US Fish and Wildlife Service, Cornell University, the Ithaca Children’s Garden, Pop-up Adventure Playworkers Morgan Leichter-Saxby and Sharon Unis, and the kids and families of Ithaca, NY to create the funky wild ...read more
Ice, Salt, Color; FUN
Another fun visit to the Seed Center in Ithaca, NY. Inspired by Bev Bos, Jacquelyn put out frozen ICE BLOCKS in bins and gave the kids salt and food coloring. The salt melts the ice in fascinating patterns and the color, well, colors it! Fun stuff on a warm summer’s day…
