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"Run Outside and Play"
I can still hear my mother urging me out of the house and into the outdoors when I was growing up in rural Alabama. That's what parents did back then, told their children to go play and stop whining or fighting with their brothers and sisters. There is wisdom in those words that parents today can heed. Yes, we live in Florida where it's too hot to even breathe outside, no, kids can't just run off across the pasture to the woods and yes, everyone is scared of "stranger danger." But these excuses are not good enough. Children need a great deal of time in nature that they're not getting today.
Some think it's enough if children just watch nature programs on television. No bugs, no dirt,
That's another difference from my generation. I was not driven around from one activity to another. (For many years we didn't even own a car.) If I wanted to play with my friends, Rachel or Judy, I had to walk to their houses, possibly a mile or two away. My mother did not have time to worry about my social life.
But what if you're in the middle of a suburban development and there are no woods for escape? That's why I'm writing this piece-to give you some ideas on how you can turn your own backyard into an enticing place for children to play.
There are several musts for a backyard play area: a big sand box, some "loose pieces" to build with, lots of interesting plantings under which to make houses, a digging area, some water, a rope swing.
First, the sand box. Please, none of the plastic turtle sand boxes. They're too small and don't lend themselves to the kind of play that can stretch into hours. If you don't have the means to build a sandbox, one that has a bench all the way around and is ample enough for some real building and digging to go on, do what we have done in the kindergarten play yard at Suncoast Waldorf School. Collect stumps and set them in a large circle. You can tie them together to keep them from falling over, but the sand, too, will provide stabilization. Fill with sand.
You can have a load of sand dumped and you can use a wheel barrow to haul it to the sandbox area. (One of our parents had the means for hauling huge bags full of sand from Home Depot.) It is important to put the sand box under a tree for shade. If you don't have a tree, build a shade over the box using a type of sun screen over posts. You can improvise by stretching chicken wire over the top of well dug posts and then spreading Spanish moss over the wire. Our sand box at school sits under several oak trees.
The nice thing about using stumps is that the children can practice their balance while walking around the uneven stumps. But another plus is the natural beauty of the stumps and how pleasing it is just to look at them and touch them. What is even more pleasing is to watch the children play in this sand area and to see how engaged they are, how they create their worlds, how they don't need adults to tell them what to do, how they learn to play together. They will play contentedly for long stretches of time. Give them a source of water they can haul to the sand and the play takes an even more interesting turn.
It is important to cover the sand box area with a large tarp that you can weight down with rocks in order to keep out cats or dogs. When it rains the tarp will catch rain water and the children can have more fun splashing in the deep puddles.
Now for the loose pieces. By this I mean having things on hand that children can use in their play or building. This would be things such as smooth planks, stumps, bamboo poles, cut palmettos or palm fronds, concrete blocks, rope, old sheets or table cloths-just use your imagination and you'll know what to gather up. One of the most satisfying of loose pieces to have around is several hay bales. First, the children play on them as they are, pushing them around, jumping from one to the other, and enjoying the intact bales. Then, gradually, the hay is pulled out and soft piles of the hay provide other varieties of play which include tossing it up into the air.
When I was growing up, building play houses was a central part of our play. We raided garbage dumps for these building treasures. Parents living in urban areas have to help create these loose pieces for children but the rewards will be well worth the effort.
Imagine creating a back yard with little paths that circle around lush plantings filled with blooming flowers. Instead of one large green lawn that must be constantly mowed, mysterious and inviting areas underneath small trees and shrubs are created. Stepping stones can be laid through a flower garden. Recently, a parent at our school build a little arched wooden bridge that crosses the herb and flower garden in the play yard.
Find one area in your yard that is available to the children for digging. Digging in the earth is different from digging in a sand box. Children encounter living nature and their imaginations take them all the way to China. They need real, child sized shovels, certainly not those useless plastic ones. Add some water, and one has real mud for making pies or creating lakes and rivers.
If you have a strong tree branch, hang a good rope swing. It can be a single rope with a knot or a circular board at the end or a double rope with a real swing seat. The swing of a rope swing is so much more satisfying that the short swings that metal swing sets give.
I hope these suggestions will inspire you to provide the kind of back yard that children deserve. You will be released from your role as cruise director as the children's imaginations are sparked into action. Then, you'll be able to say as my mother did, "Run outside and play now and don't come back in until I call you for supper!"
Barbara Bedingfield is a kindergarten teacher and one of the founders of the Suncoast Waldorf School. She serves on the Board of Trustees and the Governance Council as Chair of the Faculty. Barbara received her Bachelor's degree in Education from the University of Florida and a Master's Degree in Early Childhood from Antioch University New England. Barbara has been teaching children of all ages for 21 years including two years in Liberia, West Africa with the Peace Corp. Barbara was also one of the founders of The Children's Place, an alternative school in Clearwater and taught there from 1973 to 1980.
To learn more about the Suncoast Waldorf School you can visit their website at:
http://www.suncoastwaldorf.org/ SCHOOL OF THE SUNCOAST Phone: (727) 786-8311 |
no danger that way. But also no fresh air, no sun, no running around, no exploring, no imagination. So, first of all, unplug the TV drug, the IPOD drug, the video game drug and any other electronic device that has captured the minds and souls of the kid population. As long as children can sit back and be entertained, they will not develop their capacities for entertaining themselves.Copyright © WTCB- Women Taking Care of Business, Inc. ® All Rights Reserved See Terms of Use for this website |