The PlayGround Blog features some cool playground games today to challenge your kids' imaginations!

"The good news for parents is that public playgrounds are free, and they offer hours of outdoor fun especially when you get creative. Suggested below are two types of playground games. Not only are these fun, they also push your kids to think out of the box!" the author says.

Find out what the two games are!

Americans overwhelmingly believe that schools have a major role to play in advancing the health of our nation’s kids, and they are specifically concerned about the lack of recess and physical activity in schools, according to new polling results released today by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s leading public-health foundation and Sports4Kids, a national nonprofit that brings safe and healthy playtime to low-income elementary schools.

This survey represents the most up-to-date overview of public attitudes on recess in schools and helps to explain the growing momentum of public support to make play and physical activity an essential part of the school day. It also reveals that Americans intuitively understand the critical relationship between our health and where and how we live, work, learn and play, and that the physical and social environment in our schools have an outsized impact on the health of our kids.

Some key findings from the survey include:

• Nearly four out of five parents believe that children aren’t getting enough physical playtime on a daily basis.
• Seven out of 10 Americans disagree with schools’ policies of eliminating or reducing recess time for budgetary, safety or academic reasons.
• An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that recess serves many important functions for both students and teachers. For example, 91 percent believe that having a break with physical activity helps children stay focused and learn in the classroom.

Read the polling results.

Jessica Shepherd
guardian.co.uk
Dec. 10, 2008

England's playgrounds are to be given a £235m makeover from next spring, ministers revealed today.

Every local authority will receive at least £1m to revamp and add to their play areas.

In 10 of the most deprived parts of the country, councils will be given £2.5m each for state-of-the-art adventure playgrounds.

The government wants all the playgrounds to be safe, child-friendly and used by a wide age range of children - partly to deter young people from anti-social behaviour.

Read the full article.

By DAVID CRARY
Associated Press
Nov. 18, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) - In one classroom, a group of preschool teachers squatted on the floor, pretending to be cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers. Next door, another group ended a raucous musical game by placing their tambourines and drums atop their heads.

Silly business, to be sure, but part of an agenda of utmost seriousness: To spread the word that America's children need more time for freewheeling play at home and in their schools.

"We're all sad, and we're a little worried. ... We're sad about something missing in childhood," psychologist and author Michael Thompson told 900 early childhood educators from 22 states packed into an auditorium last week.

"We have to fight back," he declared. "We're going to fight for play." [More]

Looking for creative, fun toys that promote unstructured play this holiday season? Mara Kaplan, one of the co-founders of the Center for Creative Play (and longtime friend of KaBOOM!), has set up an Amazon Store connected to her website, www.letkidsplay.com. The store is filled with open-ended, creative, and fun toys.

"A majority of the toys are made of natural materials," she says. "There is very little plastic, plugs or batteries. Many of the toys are appropriate for children with disabilities. There are hundreds of suggestions of toys you may have never seen before."

She's highlighting one toy from the store each day on her website, http://letkidsplay.blogspot.com. Check it out if you're looking for recommendations for the holiday shopping season!

By Donna Jones
Santa Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel
Nov. 15, 2008

At Mintie White Elementary School, the playground was decades old. The steel slide was rusting. Metal rings broke on a climbing structure. Children were getting hurt, Principal Olga de Santa Anna said.

New playgrounds are big-ticket items, however, and typically are funded by parent groups. But de Santa Anna said her parents don't have the resources of those in wealthier communities so there was no money to replace the decrepit playground.

That's changed, though. By Christmas, the 80-year-old school on Palm Avenue will have three new playgrounds -- one for kindergartners, another for first- and second-graders and a third for the school's older students -- thanks to a class action lawsuit aimed at ensuring all California public school children have equal access to decent facilities, sufficient textbooks and quality teachers. [More]

Learn how to advocate for play in your community through the Playmaker Network.

From the Peaceful Playgrounds blog...

For the past 30 years most California schools have closed their playgrounds and fields to the public fearing that the schools would be vandalized. In SF however, the pilot of 11 schools playgrounds open for public use for the past year is proving to do just the opposite. Participating schools so far say the extra traffic actually keeps campuses safer, according to Chris Armentrout, director of development and government relations for the district.

San Francisco is a Playful City USA community. Opening school playgrounds to the public is a great way to increase the number of available play spaces in a community without having to build or develop additional play areas.

Has your community tried this? What kind of response have you seen? Post your thoughts in the comments.

By BEN DOBBIN

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A magic wand, a fishing rod or a royal scepter?

The lowly stick, a universal plaything powered by a child's imagination, landed in the National Toy Hall of Fame on Thursday along with the Baby Doll and the skateboard.

The three were chosen to join the Strong National Museum of Play's lineup of 38 classics ranging from the bicycle, the kite and Mr. Potato Head to Crayola crayons, marbles and the Atari 2600 video game system.

Curators said the stick was a special addition in the spirit of a 2005 inductee, the cardboard box. They praised its all-purpose, no-cost, recreational qualities, noting its ability to serve either as raw material or an appendage transformed in myriad ways by a child's creativity.

Read the rest of the article here.

To find some great new ways to use a stick, take a look at Not A Stick by Antoinette Portis.

(Note: Samantha, AKA Sammy12, is a frequent poster in the KaBOOM! Forums)

By Andy Mattison
Syracuse (N.Y.) 10 News
Oct. 26, 2008

PHOENIX, N.Y. -- Meet 17 year old Samantha Furco, a senior at John C. Birdlebough High School in Phoenix. She's undertaking a project that few kids her age would even care about, let alone carry out.

It all started one day at her brother's football game. She noticed a little boy in a wheelchair, watching other kids play on the playground.

"He couldn't play on the playground with the rest of the kids, seeing his little brother play and not him it's kind of heart wrenching,” said Samantha Furco. [More]

Make A Difference Day is the most encompassing national day of helping others -- a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone can participate. Created by USA WEEKEND Magazine, Make A Difference Day is an annual event that takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. The next event is Oct. 25, 2008.

If you can’t volunteer for the KaBOOM! playground builds in Tampa, Vancleave (Miss.) or Cedar Rapids (Iowa) on Oct. 25, help make a difference by adding playspaces to the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder!

Your contributions will not only help people find great places to play, they'll also help communities assess where there need to be more -- or better -- playspaces. So help us find every playspace, good and bad. Grab your camera and head to the playground on Oct. 25!

How are you going to celebrate Make a Difference Day? Post your thoughts in the comments.

By KRISTI FUNDERBURK
Vineland (N.J.) Daily Journal
Oct. 3, 2008

VINELAND -- The swings, slides and monkey bars at Cumberland Christian School were given a time out Wednesday after school officials learned the playground did not meet federal guidelines for safety.

Elementary school Principal Linda Visconti informed parents Wednesday there was not enough mulch under the playground equipment at the Sherman Avenue school.

The news came after a second-grade student fell from playground equipment Tuesday and suffered a mild wrist fracture, she said.

She sent a letter home to parents Wednesday.

"Until we can assure the safety of the students, they will not be able to play on the equipment," Visconti said in the letter. "The timetable for reopening the playground depends on the funds and materials." [More]

It's important to set up maintenance funds to regularly replace your safety surfacing. Learn more about safety surfacing in the "Safety" section of the KaBOOM! Toolkit.

By Karen Blackledge
The Daily Item
Sept. 2, 2008

DANVILLE — With a list of 14 safety items needing to be addressed and the risk of insurance coverage being lost, the Kidsville playground complex was closed Tuesday.
 
Orange and red “no trespassing” signs have been posted along the dark brown wooden fence of the castle-style wooden structure at the Washies Playground in Danville’s 2nd Ward.

The main entrance was barricaded by an orange plastic fence with a more permanent and locked barricade to be installed.

The items that need to be corrected before the insurance company will sign off lack volunteers to do them. [More]

Have you found a great way to recruit volunteers for maintenance tasks? Post your thoughts in the Forums.

By John Kelly
Washington Post
Sept. 15, 2008

To the kids who played baseball on the Macomb Street playground back in the 1960s, the drop at the edge of far left field might as well have been the Grand Canyon. If the horsehide skittered past your glove and rolled down that ball-swallowing trench, it was a sure homerun for the other team.

But on Saturday afternoon, at a 40th (roughly) reunion of playground regulars, former child after former child came to the same conclusion. "It doesn't look so big now," said 52-year-old Wai Hom, who'd traveled all the way from Nashua, N.H., to reconnect with old friends.

For Wai and the dozens of other Macomb veterans, the Northwest D.C. playground was a skinned-knee utopia. It seems almost unimaginable today, when we won't let children out of our sight and every extracurricular activity is programmed down to the millisecond, but once upon a time, kids were kids. [More]

Make sure your kids have good playground memories - consider building or refurbishing a local playspace today.

By MATT CLARK
Naples (Fla.) Daily News
Sept. 15, 2008

Michele Haszard was having fun with her children at a local playground when she noticed how dirty some of the equipment was. After searching around Bonita Springs and finding more of the same, she started a playground cleaning company called Heaven On Earth. "Instead of reactive, I decided to be proactive," Haszard said.

Children aren’t the only things hanging from the monkey bars on Southwest Florida’s playgrounds.

Just ask Charles Gerba, also known as “Dr. Germ,” a professor at the University of Arizona who has studied germs for decades.

“Basically, we see it as a good germ transfer point,” says Gerba. “If you were a germ, where would you want to be? You’d want to be where little kids are playing all the time.” [More]

Learn how to organize a playspace cleanup!

Park at old Memorial Stadium grounds had been haven for hundreds of children
By Justin Fenton
Baltimore Sun
Sept. 10, 2008

Fire destroyed the sprawling playground that thousands of volunteers built three years ago at the site of the old Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street, a blaze that community leaders called "devastating" as they vowed to rebuild.

...

The 14,000-square-foot playground was built in 2005 next to the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center at Stadium Place, providing a safe gathering spot for hundreds of children in the heart of the community. With senior homes built nearby, the playground was key part of the area's redevelopment and a place where residents young and old converged.

Money for the $350,000 project was raised through fish fries and spaghetti dinners and by local schoolchildren, and an army of volunteers from across the region chipped in to build the structure. [More]

Discuss this article in the Forums.

Why portable playground toys will really keep kids moving
By Laura Sullivan, Parenting Magazine

Elaborate jungle gyms and twisty slides sure are fun, but they may not give your child the most well-rounded "workout." A recent study of daycare-center playgrounds found that when kids had access to items like balls, hula hoops, and jump ropes, they were more active than when they had only stationary structures to play on. [More]

More on the study

Looking for a great place to stop on your next family vacation or field trip? Check out the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y.!

Strong National Museum of Play is the only museum in the world dedicated solely to the study of play as it illuminates American culture. The museum offers engaging exhibit experiences, educational programs, guest amenities, annual memberships, standards-based school lessons, teacher development opportunities, an innovative preschool, a circulating library, a research library and archives, scholarly publications, and more. Recognized as one of the nation’s top museums for families and children, Strong National Museum of Play is home to the National Toy Hall of Fame and the world’s largest collection of toys, dolls, games and other items that celebrate play.

Learn more about the museum.

If the video does not appear above, view it here.

By John Doherty
Syracuse (N.Y.) Post Standard
Aug. 23, 2008

Ed. note: Samantha is a fixture in the KaBOOM! community, where she's known as Sammy12.

People are finally starting to take Samantha Furco seriously.

For nearly two years Furco, a Phoenix high school senior, has been trying to get support for a playground designed for disabled children.

A volunteer with the Phoenix Special Olympics program, Furco got the idea for the playground for disabled children after seeing a child sitting in a wheelchair watching other children playing in a playground.

"I would talk to people about it and they'd say, 'Yeah, yeah, it's a good idea,' " Furco said.

Days after a story detailing Furco's plans appeared in The Post-Standard the offers began. [More]

View Sammy12's profile and read her posts in the Forums.

By Brent Mazerolle
Moncton (New Brunswick) Times & Transcript Staff
Aug. 23, 2008

A just society doesn't pave a playground and put up a parking lot. Period.

The kids of Ackman Court knew it, and now the grown-ups know it too.

New Brunswick's Social Development Minister Mary Schryer said yesterday her department is now prepared to replace a playground slated for demolition at one of her department's NB Housing communities in east Moncton.

The park had been the site of a four-day long protest completely organized by neighbourhood children after contractors arrived Tuesday to tear it out.

Facing opposition from a group of pint-sized children with 10-gallon hearts, the workers agreed to give them a week to appeal the decision to remove the play area, known as Winnie Reiker Playground.

Adult residents of the community were told the outdated, potentially unsafe playground was being removed so work could be carried out on the sewer system, but that it would not be replaced and the space would be turned into a parking lot. [More]

See earlier article

Bathurst (Canada) Northern Light
Aug. 22, 2008

MONCTON - The children of Ackman Court could teach adults a thing or two about perseverance and social consciousness.

For the past several days at least two dozen of them have circled their playground in the Lewisville area waving placards and chanting "Save our park!"

"This was their idea," says parent Rachelle Williams. "I had 10 kids come asking for money to buy bristolboard and markers and this and that. I couldn't say no."

On Tuesday, contractors came to tear out the park, known as the Winnie Reiker Playground, but the kids put up such a fuss the workers agreed to give them a week to appeal the decision to remove the play area. [More]

Become a Playmaker and take action for play today!

Bruno Taylor, who just completed a masters degree in industrial design, has been hijacking public spaces to make them more playful, adding swings to London bus stops and creating a bouncing bench. He says:

“71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young. 21% of children do so now. Are we designing children and play out of the public realm?

"This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behaviour for all.

"It asks us to question the current framework for public space and whether it is sufficient while also giving permission for young people to play in public.

"Play as you go...” Bruno Taylor."

Watch a video of his work.

Discuss play in your community in the Forums!

By PHILIP K. HOWARD
Wall Street Journal
Aug. 13, 2008

Excerpt:

The harmful effects of our national safety obsession ripple outward into society. One in six children in America is obese, and many of them will face a lifetime of chronic illness. According to the Center for Disease Control, this problem would basically cure itself if children engaged in the informal outdoor activities that used to be normal. But how do we lure children off the sofa? One key attraction is risk.

Risk is fun, at least the moderate risks that were common in prior generations. An informal survey of children by the University of Toronto's Institute of Child Studies found that "merry-go-rounds . . . anecdotally the most hated piece of playground equipment in hospital emergency rooms -- topped the list of most desired bits of playground equipment." Those of us of a certain age can remember sprinting to get the contraption really moving. That was fun. And a lot of exercise.

America unfortunately is going in the opposite direction. There is nothing left in playgrounds that would attract the interest of a child over the age of four. Exercise in schools is carefully programmed, when it exists at all. Some schools have banned tag. Broward County, Fla., banned running at recess. (How else can we guard against a child falling down?) Little Leagues forbid sliding into base. Some towns ban sledding. High diving boards are history, and it's only a matter of time before all diving boards disappear. [More]

Discuss this article in the Forums.

New playground 'excites' kids, parents
More equipment is planned later

By Rick Rojas
Louisville Courier-Journal
Aug. 13, 2008

Byck Elementary School has playground equipment for the first time in its history, and it's already drawing children's interest in school.

Darlene King said her daughter Kelaiah, a kindergartner, told her she could not wait to come to school for the PTA's dedication of the playground on Aug. 5.

"It's a safe and fun place for our children," King said. "It says a lot about this community and the importance that they place on their children."

The equipment, which cost $15,000 and was installed over the summer, includes two tire swings, a standing seesaw, a climber and a four-swing set.

PTA president Myrdin Thompson it's only the first phase of a project to build what will be a $65,000 playground at the school, 2328 Cedar St. The next phases will include some more expensive equipment and a small play set for preschoolers, she said. [More]

Check out Myrdin's Playmaker of the Month interview.

Peaceful Playgrounds, Inc. has announced their new "Learn to Play" U.S. Map Stencil Giveaway Program. Enter today to win the geographically and proportionally accurate educational stencil which is Peaceful Playground's best selling playground stencil.

A winner will be selected each quarter and no purchase is necessary to win. Enroll your school today by signing up for the U.S. Playground Map Stencil Giveaway on the Peaceful Playgrounds Website.

LEWISBURG, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Playworld Systems, Inc., a leading international manufacturer of playgrounds and playground equipment, has announced that it will become the first major playground manufacturer to abandon the use of polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC) in its products. PVC, commonly knows as “vinyl” has been a significant component in playground equipment for decades. However, recent private and public studies have indicated it is environmentally unsound and a potential health risk.

“We have a responsibility to the environment and the children who use our playgrounds to do everything in our power to use the most environmentally friendly substances” said Matt Miller, president of Playworld Systems. “We are proud to be the first major playground manufacturer to do something about the actual problem of PVC and not just ‘offset’ its effects by other means.” [More]

High school senior and KaBOOM! Forum power user Sammy12 (AKA Samantha Furco) was just featured in her local newspaper discussing her work to try and build an accessible playground in Phoenix, N.Y.

Exerpt:

Furco has contacted manufacturers of playground units specifically designed for children in wheelchairs and other disabled children. A suitable unit will cost about $50,000, she said.

To raise the money, Furco is planing a series of events, including raffles, donation drives and community fundraising dinners.

"The fundraising is not a problem. I can take care of that," she said. "But I need land, some place to put it. That's my biggest obstacle. Without that place to build, we can't do it."

So far, she said, her proposal has received polite responses but no promises of support. She also has tried several times, without success, to enlist the help of local officials.

"I've called and called, but they haven't returned my calls," Furco said. "I think it's because I'm 17 and they're not taking me seriously. That is one of the biggest obstacles my mother told me I would face. But she said, 'Stick to it and don't let it get you down.' " [More]

Since the article was published, someone has offered her the land! Learn more, offer your advice, and congratulate Sammy12 in the Forums.

Your local playground is not just for child's play; it is a workout waiting to happen, and a fun one at that. If you happen to have kids and they drag you to the park. Don't sit idly by, try some of these moves. If you don't have a kid, just go and have fun and remember to share the monkey bars with the wee ones. [More]

Discuss how you work out on the playground in the Forums.

By Keith Ferguson
Sharon (Mass.) Advocate
Aug 07, 2008
 
SHARON - Thanks to the efforts of about 100 volunteers last weekend, children will be playing on the new Heights Community Playground as early as tomorrow, according to Project Manager Karen Wald.

About 60 community members worked seven hours on Friday and 40 or so labored all day Saturday to install the new playground equipment, which includes giant slides, a rock wall and a PlayWeb, said Wald. All that’s left, she added, is to lay down mulch and install a walking track and a shade structure.

“I can’t wait until it’s over,” Wald said, laughing.

The playground has been two years in the making. [More]

Learn how to build a playground with our Roadmap!

By JOHN MARSHALL
Associated Press
Aug. 3, 2008

If you've been swimming, you probably tried it at least once: dive into the water and see how far you can get without taking a stroke. Coast past 62 feet, and you could have earned a gold medal at the 1904 Olympics.

The tug-of-war you played with friends at school? That could have been worth a podium spot at six Games. A gym class favorite like the rope climb and a game that looked like hopscotch -- the standing hop, step, jump -- were also once medal events. [More]

Find other great outdoor games to play!

Joe Olenick
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
Aug. 4, 2008

QUESTION: What happened to the playground?

ANSWER: Well the problem was it's 18 years old, and weather has taken its toll. The safety report said the decks, the horizontal surfaces, basically, had to be replaced. The slides needed to be replaced, and there was some rust that needed to be fixed. Basically, age issues.

Q: How did this group come together? It seemed to come about pretty quickly.

A: Yeah it did. It's a small community, and pretty much everybody that does stuff knows each other. The school board received a safety report from the BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) wanted it closed until it was fixed. I happened to be at that meeting, and they asked me if the PTA had any input. It basically grew out of there. We put out a call for anyone interested. At the first meeting, we had a good group, a lot of parents. We also had the original chairman of the committee that built it in the first place. She had her original binder with copies of every fundraiser. It had a layout of the gym and who was at each station. [More]

Learn how to form a play committee.

Aug. 2, 2008
Midlothian (Va.) Exchange

A new kind of business is opening in the Midlothian area for those who never grew up in spirit. Wiwalk, located at the Shooters Indoor Sportsplex at 6140 Brad McNeer Pkwy. in Midlothian, is offering a trial period to folks ages 55 and up through the month of August. Richard Kent, owner of Shooters, developed the concept two years ago to introduce activities for seniors involving activities such as Big Wheel races, look up beach ball, hoola hoops, badminton and more in the comfort of a 28,000 square-foot facility. "This is the first senior playground in the country of this type," Kent said. [More]

Get all generations out to play - host a Play Day with our tools and resources!

Play time is over for children, with up to half of youngsters banned from climbing trees, playing conkers or riding their bikes by over-protective parents who are terrified that they might get hurt.

ICM research for Play England shows that half of seven to 12-year-olds are banned from climbing trees. Four in 10 were banned from playing in their local park or recreational area without an adult present and one in three cannot ride a bike without parental supervision.

One in five had been banned from playing conkers and one in six were not allowed to play chase because over-protective parents had ruled that it was too dangerous.

Yet parents were much less vigilant when it came to internet safety, the study found. Three-quarters of children aged seven to 12 were allowed to surf the internet without adult guidance.

Professionals in child welfare warned that children's development was being damaged by parents' obsession with safety, which was depriving youngsters of adventurous play. [More]

Are parental fears keeping kids from the playground? Discuss it in our Forums.

Aug. 4, 2008
Center for Justice & Democracy via PR Newswire

The national consumer group Center for Justice & Democracy released today a new report entitled, Kids 'N Safe Play: Regulation, Litigation And Playground Safety. The report, by CJ&D Attorney/Policy Analyst Amy Widman, herself a mom with young toddlers at home, comes on the heels of passage of major consumer project legislation, much of it aimed at child safety. [More]

Discuss play and play safety in our Forums!

Stand up

Head over to a city council meeting the next time they offer an open forum for people to ask questions or make comments, then stand up to talk about why play is important, and how the state of play in your community could be improved.

Be sure to do a little research first. Check out a few studies and learn about why play is a necessary part of kids' development.

Learn how.

See more actions.

Get recognized!
If you took action, tell us about it so we can recognize you as the star you are!
Post in the Forums or email KaBOOM! to let us know about the great stuff you're doing.

By Kyle Wind
Kingston Daily Freeman
August 1, 2008

KINGSTON - After one year of planning, it only took just one day to build a playground at Metropolitan Park on the corner of Greenkill and South Clinton avenues.

Volunteers numbering 252 began constructing the playground at 8 a.m. Thursday, and by 4 p.m., a ribbon-cutting ceremony opened the colorful play area designed for children ages 2 through 12. The site features slides, climbing apparatus, monkey bars, swings, a preschool area and an accessible climber for children with disabilities.

The playground also includes benches, picnic tables, shade structures and horseshoe pits, as well as volleyball and basketball courts. [More]

Learn how to build benches, picnic tables, shade structures and more!

By Kim Lawrence
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
July 31, 2008

A gift from a soon-to-be second-grader and the complaints of a group of parents have prompted Moon Area School District to send a maintenance crew to J.A. Allard Elementary School to draw up a "to-do" list of repairs. In addition, the superintendent has e-mailed parents to schedule a meeting to address more long-term concerns.

Leah Baker, a pupil at Allard, turned 7 years old June 21. She chose to celebrate her birthday by giving rather than receiving.

The youngster donated $200 of her birthday money to the school district to fix her favorite slide in the school playground. [More]

Learn lots of great fundraising ideas in our Fundraising Ideas wiki!

Playground Builders offers hope, opportunity to children in Middle East conflict zones
By Jesse Ferreras
Pique Magazine (British Columbia)
July 30, 2008

The world’s most dangerous places present nothing but opportunity for Keith Reynolds, a Whistler resident who has just established a playground in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Reynolds, a former forestry worker, is the founder of Playground Builders, a Whistler-based organization established in 2006 that has built play areas and gathering places in countries such as Iraq and areas under control of the Palestinian Authority. [More]

Discuss your community's playspaces in our Forums.

Parents and Kids Want Goods to Sell That Do Some Good
By SIMONA COVEL
Wall Street Journal

For decades, children have hawked candy and cookie dough to friends and family to help fund extracurricular activities and school playgrounds.

Now a handful of entrepreneurs have set out to change that paradigm, offering ecologically friendly products for kids and parents to sell for school fund-raisers. From recycled wrapping paper to fair-trade coffee, the business owners are pitching the products as viable fund-raising alternatives for schools. [More]

Learn more about fundraising ideas and opportunities.

Loss of recess in schools hurts children’s growth, ability to learn
Buffalo News
June 4, 2008

If there were a way to scientifically measure which child had the most fun on the playground, then recess would be a federal mandate. But because the need for elementary-age students to get out of the building and blow off some youthful steam is better known to common sense than to scientific inquiry, the old-fashioned practice has sadly fallen out of favor in far too many American schools.

The national Parent Teacher Association has noticed, with appropriate alarm, that a nefarious combination of factors has knocked recess out of as many as 40 percent of elementary schools nationwide. Those factors include budget cuts, worries about injuries or bullying on the playground and the growing emphasis on core academic subjects and frequent high-stress tests. [More]

Learn how to write an op/ed!

By MEGHAN DURBAK
Kokomo Tribune
July 23, 2008

When Jeremy Jones arrived at the Maple Lawn Trailer Court in Miami County, he noted the pathetic state of the playground.

The dirt and empty frames acted as testimony to the diminishing quality of life in the neighborhood over the years.

There was a swing set with no swings, except the infant carrier loosely attached to the metal frame by a rope. The rest had disappeared long ago.

Jones realized the neighborhood had nearly 100 young children, and nowhere for them to play.

That’s why Jones, the youth pastor for First Baptist Church of Galveston, and the youth group DV8, decided to sponsor a mission trip to the trailer court. [More]

Learn how to revitalize a playground near you with side projects!

Altus Times
July 22, 2008

ALTUS — Given the jungle rules of some playgrounds, where the biggest and toughest tend to dominate, consider the scene recently at Washington Elementary School.

A recess came and went, with children running loose during a sublime afternoon, and nobody cried, got punched, got hurt, or got left out of a game.

Nobody got into a fight, got bullied or dragged back inside the classroom where the teacher had to settle a playground dispute.

Sound impossible? It’s not. With the implementation of the Peaceful Playgrounds Program such peace is no accident. The anti-violence and playground organization program is called Peaceful Playgrounds and its aim is to topple the centuries-old Darwinian pecking order of the schoolyard. [More]

Learn more about Peaceful Playgrounds.

By Sewell Chan
New York Times
July 21, 2008

Rubber safety mats have become a fixture of children’s playgrounds in New York City, buffering heads, hands and other body parts when children slip and fall. But two news accounts today — in The Daily News and in Metro New York — question whether the mats themselves pose a hazard: They can get so hot under the summer sun that they can burn bare feet.

The Daily News found that some of the mats could get as hot as 160 degrees.

...

In a phone interview, Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said the criticism was understandable but unwarranted. [More]

Learn more about safety surfacing.

Discuss this article in the Forums.

Write a letter

Are your kids restless because recess time keeps getting shorter and shorter, or because your school board doesn’t budget for playground repairs? Say something!

Write a letter to the editor. Explain why play is important to kids’ social, cognitive, and physical development. For some kids, recess is the only time they get to engage in unstructured play each day. Demand the return of recess and great places for your kids to play at school!

Learn how.

See more actions.

Get recognized!
If you took action, tell us about it so we can recognize you as the star you are!
Post in the Forums or email KaBOOM! to let us know about the great stuff you're doing.

By: Deborah Tuff
Raleigh News 14
July 11, 2008

DURHAM – Durham homeowners are bumping heads with a charter school over a proposed playground.

Although officials at Healthy Start Academy said they need more space for their students to play, neighbors said that space doesn't have to be in their backyards.

The academy is planning to tear down two homes on Jackson Street in Durham to turn the land into a playground.

But that idea doesn’t sit well for Jeff Bergman and his wife Jessica Polard. [More]

Discuss this story in the Forums.

Take a walk

Slip on your sandals or lace up your sneakers and take a walk. Is there a playground within walking distance of your home? Get out and see what’s out there.

If you’re not sure where to find the nearest playground, you’re in luck – the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder is here to help.

Learn how.

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Post in the Forums or email KaBOOM! to let us know about the great stuff you're doing.

Arson suspected in destruction of slides, ramps and climbing wall at Hailmann Elementary School.
Timothy O’Connor
Michigan City (Ind.) News-Dispatch
July 8, 2008

LA PORTE - A pile of new playground equipment melted to a school's parking lot pavement on Saturday afternoon after it caught fire due to as of yet unknown reasons. Arson is suspected.

The equipment, which included slides, a climbing wall and ramps, was sitting in the parking lot of Hailmann Elementary when neighbors noticed the fire around 3:45 p.m.

"Once it started burning it was quite a fire," said Robert Worthington, who reported the fire to police. "I did not see a soul anywhere in the vicinity."

Still, police suspect the fire was intentional.

Detective Clyde Crass said there was no firework activity in the area at the time and it was unlikely one of the celebratory explosives could have started the blaze. He added that the fire department found no traces of fireworks in the palettes of charred plastic equipment. [More]

Learn how to keep your new play equipment safe before the build.

With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, urban parks and green spaces have a more important role than ever.  Parks connect people to nature, provide spaces for relaxation and recreation, and strengthen both the body and the spirit.  The 2008 International Urban Parks Conference, scheduled for September 21-23 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will explore this valuable connection. Body and Soul: Parks and the Health of Great Cities will bring together leading-edge research experts, public officials, and management innovators to help shape the future of our cities.
 
Over 90 speakers will provide practical information on issues from managing parks sustainably to forming partnerships that promote active living through park usage.  Keynote addresses from Teresa Heinz, Luis Garden Acosta, and Richard Louv focus on making connections between people, parks, and the environment as a whole. 

Many conference sessions directly address the need to establish parks as centers for healthy, active living.  Topics include “One Step at a Time: Promoting Physical Activity in the Park,” “No One Left Inside: Lifting Barriers to Park Access for All,” and “Re-Discovering Our Neighbors and Our Community in City Parks.”

In addition to the wide variety of conference sessions, attendees can participate in a number of pre-conference tours, including visits to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and bike and kayak tours of Pittsburgh.  Tours of Pittsburgh’s downtown and riverfront will highlight the city’s near-miraculous transformation from “Smoky City” to America’s Most Livable City.  Mobile workshops in Pittsburgh’s parks will present in-depth case studies that showcase a wide range of innovative restoration and development initiatives.  And the Body and Soul Exhibit Hall will feature the parks-related products and services of nearly 50 organizations.

Body and Soul is a presentation of City Parks Alliance and the National Association for Olmsted Parks and is a production of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.  The complete schedule, speaker information, and registration are available at www.urbanparks08.org.

By HOPE HODGE
New York Sun
June 23, 2008

New York elementary schools are woefully lacking in outdoor play spaces, with nearly half of all schools having no playground for recess, and schools in minority communities are the worst off, a new report released yesterday by state Senator Jeffrey Klein finds.

Mr. Klein introduced a bill that would ban the construction of any school without a playground and prohibit current schools from using yard space for any purpose that would result in less room for play areas. [More]

Learn more about the benefits of play.

Parents, clubs, businesses provide money for school facility in poor neighborhood
By Cathy Spaulding
Muskogee (Okla.) Daily Phoenix
June 21, 2008

Sixth-grader Kayla Royse said she didn’t have a decent playground set for all the years she spent at Irving Elementary School.

“I just walk around and be bored during recess,” she said. “I didn’t think I could ever get to see a playground set that was fun.”

When Kayla and other Irving students come back to school this August, they’ll have a new set — yellow and Rougher green, complete with humpy slides, towers and spiral ladders.

Irving school administrators and Parent Teacher Organization members said hard work and good fortune helped them raise the thousands of dollars to buy and put up the playground set.

Irving, however, faced an extra challenge because of its high poverty rate, Irving principal Dr. Pam Bradley said. In 2007, 87 percent of Irving students were on free or reduced lunch. Tony Goetz Elementary, where Bradley used to be principal, had a 60 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch. The district average was 75 percent on free and reduced lunch; the state average, 56 percent. [More]

Check out the KaBOOM! one-stop fundraising shop for all kinds of fundraising resources!

Police say young people caught on tape setting fire
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
Biloxi Sun-Herald

GULFPORT -- Surveillance cameras at Bel-Aire Elementary filmed several young people as they gathered pine straw and set the school playground on fire Friday, authorities said.

The blaze heavily damaged one of two sets of colorful playground equipment in a fire possibly started on a 2-inch layer of rubber padding. The padding was on top of a concrete slab, a safety feature to cushion the falls of kids using the slides and climbing bars. The fire melted the yellow slides and a blue canvas covering that offered a bit of shade.

"I'm talking first-class playground equipment," said Henry Arledge, superintendent of the Harrison County School District. "It's very expensive equipment, probably between $15,000 and $30,000." [More]

Discuss playground vandalism in the Forums.

5-year-old leads charge to create eco-friendly park
By Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 21, 2008

Last fall, Jim Cochran's next-door neighbor, Jay Dean, planned to get rid of the backyard playground he had built for his children years ago.

Cochran offered to take it, and his 5-year-old son, Sebastian, had some ideas of what to do with it.

"I just thought about it," Sebastian said.

The end result was a playground in his backyard that was enjoyed by the family and the entire neighborhood Friday afternoon. Using motifs ranging from Noah's Ark to a treehouse, Sebastian, his father, his father's girlfriend, Lisa DeShano, and neighbors and friends transformed a basic wooden structure into the ultimate playland that is fun and ecologically friendly in that it was built with roughly 95 percent recycled materials.

"It's saving the environment," DeShano said. "It's more than saving money." [More]

Discuss eco-friendly and natural playgrounds in the Forums.

By Babs Johnson
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
June 20, 2008

FEMA's slow response to the restoration of New Orleans' public ball fields and playgrounds shows a sweeping disregard for those who have been affected most: our children. My jaw dropped reading a recent statement from FEMA that the expense of sod vs. seed "required review from high authority," an astounding comment after the recent revelation that $85 million in supplies for Katrina victims languished unknown and unused for two years.

Many of the trailers that housed displaced people on city playgrounds have been vacant for six months; some for eight. Why couldn't FEMA and the city reach agreements on how to restore the play areas before the trailers were removed, since both agencies were aware that would happen months prior to the actual removal dates?

Many children in these neighborhoods relied on these ball fields and playgrounds. They were the only places providing them safe, wholesome places to play -- that is, to do the important work of childhood. Without those, many are finding the street corners and all the ills that lifestyle holds. [More]

Learn how KaBOOM! is bringing play back to the Gulf Coast through Operation Playground.

BY DEBORAH MEDENBACH
Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record
June 18, 2008

NEW PALTZ — A "candy mint" crab apple tree was planted Tuesday morning near the new Lenape Elementary School playground. The tree honors a group of 23 students who complained two years ago that there wasn't enough play equipment or shade on the playground.

"It was a pea-gravel lot with two slides, some basketball hoops, benches and cracked macadam. The kids would just run in the field and come back during recess. There was no shade," third-grade teacher Jim Longbotham recalled.

Rather than dismissing the students' complaints, teachers encouraged them to take action and write letters about what they needed.

"There was $16,000 left over from building Duzine Elementary School's playground (also in the New Paltz School District) and we thought we could buy a little equipment with that, but then we started looking at the bigger picture," Longbotham said. The teachers held an assembly and showed the students potential playground equipment. [More]

Learn how to take action for play by becoming a Playmaker!

By Sam Penrod
KSL News
June 18th, 2008

A humanitarian-aid project is bringing electric light to an area of the world that has never seen electricity before.

It was coordinated by some BYU engineering students who just returned from Ghana where the project was completed.

The students helped a Utah company that designed a small power generator. It's powered by school children as they play on playground equipment that they've also never seen before.

The village in Ghana has its first merry-go-round, but more importantly, the first electricity. The power is generated by young children playing on the playground. [More]

Improve a playground near you by building a bench, painting a mural, or adding another side project.

By JEFFREY KLUGER
TIME Magazine
June 12, 2008

Excerpt:

Obese boys and girls are already starting to develop the illnesses of excess associated with people in their 40s and beyond: heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, gallstones, joint breakdown and even brain damage as fluid accumulation inside the skull leads to headaches, vision problems and possibly lower IQs. A staggering 90% of overweight kids already have at least one avoidable risk factor for heart disease, such as high cholesterol or hypertension. Type 2 diabetes is now being diagnosed in teens as young as 15. Health experts warn that the current generation of children may be the first in American history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents'. "The more overweight you are, the worse all of these things will be for you," says acting U.S. Surgeon General Steven Galson. And, warns Seeley, the worse they are likely to stay: "When you're talking about morbidly obese kids, zero percent will grow up to be normal-weight adults." [More]

Discuss the obesity epidemic in our Forums.

By Molly Walsh
Burlington (Vt.) Free Press
June 16, 2008

WATERBURY — In the bright morning sunshine, three little girls scampered across a dirt path, jumped on boulders, twirled on the stage of an amphitheater and perched under an apple tree to make dandelion and red clover necklaces.

Nearby, several children played a make-believe game best described as “lost baby runs from voracious tiger” that had them running from a large sand pit to a small “cave.” All the action took place on the new school playground at Thatcher Book Primary School.

The rustic facility snugged against a hillside next to the old brick school will be officially dedicated today and perhaps be viewed as a trendsetter. The fun zone is a so-called natural playground designed to eschew plastic and metal in favor of more earthy features that are supposed to help children connect with nature and use their imaginations. [More]

Discuss natural playspaces in our Forums.

By Eve Pearlman
San Jose Mercury News
June 16, 2006

Excerpt:

Media coverage of accidents and crimes, says Stearns, amplifies our fears and distorts our perception of risk — and too, he says, more and more parents consider even the remotest possibility of harm to be unacceptable.

"We've developed this phobia about taking any risk at all," says Stearns. "Kids used to break their arms and we'd say, 'Oh well' and sign the cast. But now when they do, we assume as a society that if things had just been properly organized this bad thing wouldn't have happened."

As a parent of two young children, I know the worry. A car could hop the curb. A stranger might assault my child! But I also dislike assuming the worst in each person and every circumstance. And I regret that my kids have so little space in which to grow independent, to learn how to assess a stranger at a glance, to navigate the streets of our neighborhood and to learn to trust their own judgments and perceptions. They will need these skills to thrive as adults.

"The funny thing is that there are areas we as society tolerate a great deal of risk," says Stearns, citing the minimal instruction new drivers receive and the relatively young age at which kids in the United States get driver's licenses. Traffic accidents are by far the biggest risk to children of all ages yet we speed merrily along at 70 or 75 on multi-lane freeways. [More]

Discuss this article in the Forums.

Toddlers and nannies rely on Grant Park playground doomed by museum
BY MARK J. KONKOL
Chicago Sun-Times
June 13, 2008

Before naptime Thursday morning, a bunch of New Eastside nannies lugged local rugrats to the Grant Park playground that Mayor Daley bullied the City Council into letting his wealthy friends replace with their pet project -- the relocated Chicago Children's Museum.

Nanny Emily pushed little Keira on the swings. Nanny Marta fed raspberries to a boy who likes to be called "Super Spy Man." And Nanny Ashley watched tiny Ines ride the horsey.

This is where New Eastside nannies let the little ones run around like maniacs until they're too exhausted to holler anymore.

There are swings and slides and monkey bars on a bouncy rubber mat ringed by shade trees.

"We come here every day, sometimes twice a day -- before and after naps," Nanny Ashley says. "It's perfect. Ines gets to interact with other kids. She's an only child. We know all the other kids. They come every day, too. It's like a big playgroup over here. Lots of nannies."

In September, New Eastside moms were miffed at Daley for accusing their high-rise neighborhood of protesting the kids' museum in Grant Park because they're elitist bigots who hate kids. [More]

Help save play in your community by becoming a Playmaker!

The Philadelphia Inquirer
June 13, 2008
By Jeff Shields

The sparkling new George C. Pelbano Playground and the Northeast Older Adult Center are impressive additions to Bustleton Avenue, where Pelbano's soaring, arched gym roof lends luster to Rhawnhurst's busy thoroughfare, and seniors flock to a facility they've been awaiting for more than a decade.

But like other beauties before it, the $7.6 million complex - the most expensive recreation project in city history - has broken many hearts. It has turned neighbor against neighbor, and promises to keep lawyers employed for years.

A project that was to be completed in a year took more than three, and is only now staggering to a partial grand opening Monday. The project did not go over budget, but what it saved in cash it lost in time.

There is no shortage of blame, bad luck or cruel ironies in the story of the Pelbano Playground/Northeast Older Adult Center. [More]

The KaBOOM! Road Map can help keep your project on track and on time. Learn how!

By Jessica Harding
Schenectady (N.Y.) Gazette Reporter
June 12, 2008

AMSTERDAM — The children at Clover Patch Preschool patiently waited Wednesday for a chance to play on their new playground, staring at the bright red structure in quiet anticipation.

When their teachers and staff finally let them loose, the 3- and 4-year-olds attacked the playground, running, sliding and climbing on the apparatus behind the school building attached to St. Mary’s Institute.

The CloverPatch Preschool is one of several preschools under the direction of the Center for Disability Services and educates 3- through 5-year-olds with special needs, along with typically developing children.

The Amsterdam site was the last of the CFDS-affiliated sites to have a playground. Before the new equipment, children played with large plastic toys, including a car and an airplane. [More]

Learn about addressing disability in playspaces with our helpful FAQ.

Students had their say in look of new Community Day playground
By Susan Jacobs
Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh

When students return to Community Day this fall, they will have a new playground, with equipment hand-selected by students.

On June 2, sixth-graders at the school watched a video from Landscape Structure, a company that produces sophisticated playground equipment under the label Evos.

...

The students were impressed with the options available through Evos.

"They were oohing and aahing when they saw it," said Dubner.

...

Parents and community members have been raising money for the playground and the Grable Foundation and KaBOOM awarded a $10,000 grant to the project. In all, some $30,000 has already been raised, and another $5,000 is still needed.  [More]

Read more about EVOS.

By Joe Byrnes
Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner
June 11, 2008

Ocala's decision to raze All Children's Playground came as a shock to me because I was used to seeing it during walks at Tuscawilla Park.

Often I'd see kids climbing in its towers and walks, always, it seemed, under the watchful eye of an adult.

I don't doubt the demolition was necessary. Ocala Public Works Director John Zobler said that - after 18 years - the elaborate wooden playground had become unsafe. The supports had rotted and, sooner or later, a child was going to fall or get hurt by a collapsing piece of the structure.

It disappeared quickly and with little advance notice, almost as if the community could care less. [More]

Does your neighborhood need a new playground? Check out our Roadmap to guide you through the process!

It's been a difficult year for Jacob Asher.

The 4-year-old was critically injured last April in a two-car accident that killed his mother and two brothers.

He broke his jaw in two places, broke his legs and fractured his neck.

But Jacob fought through his physical injuries, and a Waukee-based organization has built Jacob a new play space in the backyard of his Earlham house so he can get outside and play again.

Project Dream Space unveiled the 3,000-square-foot play area to Jacob and his father Eric on Sunday afternoon.

The play area features a sandbox, a two-story clubhouse and a memorial garden dedicated to his mother and brothers.

Jacob went straight for the sandbox, his father said.

"He was really excited, he really was -- he was really surprised," Eric Asher said. [More]

Learn how to organize volunteers to build a playground near you

On May 24th, 2008 more than 400 people joined together as a community to build a safe, innovative and beautiful park for children in San Pancho, Mexico. This project, known as RECICLA PARQUE (Recycled Park), relied on KaBOOM! tools, such as the online Toolkit, while creating an innovative, green playspace.

One of the principles of the RECICLA PARQUE project was to use recycled materials in the construction of the park and to teach sustainable building techniques. Groups of volunteers built walls from glass bottles, walls that used plastic bottles filled with sand as “bricks,” and benches from sacks filled with dirt and covered with a mixture of concrete and paper, a technique known as “papercrete” and experimental in the San Pancho climate. They sanded and painted old CFE spools to use as tables, refurbished found iron works to use as doors on the kids' area, and cut tires to use for swingsets and other play equipment.

Build Day was an amazing example of a community in action. Parents, teachers, kids, business owners, passers-by, San Pancho residents and groups and organizations from Bucerias, Sayulita, Guadalajara, Punta de Mita, Colorado and California joined together to create a park for the children of San Pancho in an action of solidarity and goodwill that left the organizers "thankful, inspired and awed." [More]
 
Check out the KaBOOM! Toolkit.

Rise in U.S. childhood obesity flattens out
June 1, 2008
New Scientist
 
The childhood obesity epidemic in the U.S. may have peaked, but its detrimental effects on health have barely begun.

The proportion of U.S. children and adolescents who were unusually heavy for their height rose by about 20 per cent from 1999 to 2004, but didn't change between 2003 and 2006. These latest figures are from Cynthia Ogden and colleagues at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Hyattsville, Maryland, who surveyed 8000 young people (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 299, p 2401).

Even so, there's no reason to celebrate yet, as the epidemic has peaked at worrying levels: 32 per cent of U.S. children are overweight and 16 per cent are obese.

"The public health toll of childhood obesity will continue to mount," warn Cara Ebbeling and David Ludwig, obesity researchers at the Children's Hospital Boston, in an editorial accompanying the study. "It can take many years for an obese child to develop life-threatening complications." [More]

Discuss childhood obesity in the Forums

Cutting-edge park aimed at fighting childhood obesity
By Patrick Knox
Basingstoke (U.K.) Gazette
June 9, 2008

A PROPOSED outdoor sports park in Chineham will feature cutting-edge technology in a bid to fight teenage obesity.

As part of a £495,000 facility earmarked for Binfields Farm Lane, state-of-the-art rides have been chosen to get the "PlayStation generation" outside and active again.

Speaking at a meeting of Chineham Parish Council, borough council designer Steve Welsh said the Binfields Games Area would include features that would be both challenging and fun, while encouraging exercise.

He said: "We have consulted with young people to see what activities they wanted and this is what we came up with.

"It will be a positive addition to Chineham, providing something innovative and interesting for young people." [More]

Discuss childhood obesity in the Forums

New York's Big Backyard
By HELENE STAPINSKI
The New York Times
June 6, 2008

GOING to our local playground in Brooklyn can be painful. When friends are there, it's great. But it's hard to make small talk with people I barely know about high-tech strollers, whose kid is taking French lessons (mine are not), the pros and cons of gifted-and-talented programs -- the usual nightmare urban-mommy conversation.

So, come late spring, my children and I hit the pavement, and the subway, in search of the anonymity for which New York is famous. Since I've spent most of my adult life here, I know many neighborhoods intimately and use the playgrounds as an excuse to give my children an extended tour of the town they call home. Some of the playgrounds we've stumbled upon by accident, and some I know from past lives. [More]

Explore playgrounds in your area with the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder!

Bedford school vandals strike again
June 02, 2008
Monroe (Mich.) News

For the second weekend in a row, vandals caused extensive damage to a Bedford Township school.

This time, Monroe Road Elementary School was targeted and more than $1,300 in damage was done to the playground.

...

Between 1:50 and 2 a.m. Sunday, a witness saw flames at the elementary school playground, 7979 Monroe Rd., and called authorities. A sign had been set on fire.

The vandals also cut the chains to about 20 swings and burned a downspout on the school building. Detective Tom Redmond said the culprits used an aerosol spray can and charcoal fluid to ignite the fires.

The culprits used spray paint to write vulgar language on the equipment and also wrote such things as "Jamieson was here" and "Tyler was here." [More]

Discuss playground vandalism prevention in our Forums.

Watch the video here:

Learn more about Imagination Playground

A design that fights playground politics
By Eric Peterson
Chicago Daily Herald Staff
May 31, 2008

Teachers and staff at Lakeview Elementary in Hoffman Estates know recess is meant for exercise, not playground conflicts.

But they'd searched fruitlessly for a way to encourage the former and discourage the latter among students.

Then a staff member whose own child attends school in St. Charles heard of a program in use there that she thought might just be of help at Lakeview.

The Peaceful Playgrounds program was designed about 12 years ago by Melinda Bossenmeyer, director of the College of Education at California State University.

...

"One of the things we're looking for is to impact as many kids as possible," she said. The playground's design "eliminates competition and fosters teamwork. We see that as important."

The playground games -- painted onto the blacktop by parent and staff volunteers -- were chosen based on an assessment of Lakeview's available space.

Unveiled just a couple of weeks ago, the playground already has been deemed a success by faculty and students alike, Brodie said. [More]

Learn more about Peaceful Playgrounds

Discuss the values you learned on the playground in our Forums

New Panther Run Elementary playground offers muscle-building fun
By Lia Lehrer
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
June 1, 2008

WEST LAKE WORTH -- The new playground at Panther Run Elementary School allows children to squeeze some exercise into their day.

...

The new playground, manufactured by Alabama-based GameTime, consists of a treehouse, monkey bars, slides, a rock-climbing wall and a spinner. These components stress upper-body and cardiovascular exercises, D'Aoust said.

Students at Panther Run, 10775 Lake Worth Road, are reacting well to the new equipment. Nya Jones, 9, of Wellington, said she used to jump rope at recess. Now she heads to the playground every day.

"In the old one, people would fight over the slide," Nya said, "but now, there's more room for everyone to play."

Classmate Jared McKean, 9, of Wellington, recognizes the benefit of the upper-body workout. "I have a big brother," he said. "Sometimes it can be rough, so I need to be strong." [More]

Read more about the benefits of play

Reynolds building more playgrounds in Middle East
Former forestry worker hopes to make a difference for Afghan children
By Jesse Ferreras
Pique Newsmagazine
May 28, 2008

Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank are known as some of the world’s most dangerous places, but for Whistler-based philanthropist Keith Reynolds, they present an opportunity to make a positive difference.

Reynolds, a former forestry worker, founded Playground Builders in 2006. It’s a Whistler-based organization that forms partnerships with non-governmental organizations to establish children’s playgrounds in conflict zones. The organization has established 20 playgrounds to date in places such as Baghdad, Jenin and Ramallah and is now looking to establish another in Afghanistan.

Reynolds and two others left for the Middle East this week to check on existing playgrounds and survey for new ones — to be built with funds raised earlier this year in Whistler. When they return they’ll be raising more money for the 10 new playgrounds they’ve committed to build.

Each playground is built using local workers, in an effort to reduce unemployment and inject money into the region. [More]

Learn more about how to build a playground

York's ready to play to get city grant funds
Being a 'Playful City' could lead to grant money for playgrounds.
By ANGIE MASON
York (Pa.) Daily Record/Sunday News
May 29, 2008

York could receive grant money by showing the city is serious about playtime.

A new task force is aimed at making York a "Playful City," a designation that could lead to grant funding for playground improvements.

The recognition is offered through the nonprofit KaBOOM!, a group aimed at making sure every child has a playground within walking distance.

York Mayor John Brenner learned about the organization when he helped the group build a playground in New Orleans last year.

His wife, Adrienne, is leading York's effort.

She remembered watching with their son, Sam, 4, as workers removed the seesaw from Lincoln Park a few years ago.

"It was so sad," she said. [More]

Learn more about Playful City USA

Kid ends skateboard shortage in Oakland park
By Meredith May
San Francisco Chronicle
May 29, 2008

East Oakland kids have found refuge at a new skateboard park behind Rainbow Recreation Center.

But they've also found a severe skateboard shortage.

They must wait their turn for one of six skateboards, and skate in 30-minute shifts so everyone gets a turn.

"We're trying to give them alternatives, because these neighborhoods can be rough around here, but it would be better if we had more boards," said center Director Horace Houston.

When 12-year-old skater Quentin Favia of San Francisco read about their situation in The Chronicle, he felt an incredible sense of injustice. [More]

View photos from the Oakland skate park build

Thieves Steal School Playground Equipment
KPTV News (Portland, Oregon)
May 28, 2008

KELSO, Wash. -- A large piece of metal playground equipment was disassembled and stolen from Barnes Elementary School by thieves Monday night, the school's principal said.

Kelso police said someone stole the metal jungle gym from Barnes Elementary School on Monday night.

The school principal, Brenda Ward, said whoever took the jungle gym likely spent a lot of time planning it out.

She said the thief took the entire structure apart and then hauled it away -- piece by piece.

All that's left in its place is bark dust. [More]

County to Boost Security at Sully Elementary After Fire
By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post
May 29, 2008

The Loudoun County school system plans to beef up security around Sully Elementary in Sterling after a fire that damaged part of the school's sprawling volunteer-built playground, known as Discovery Park.

"We'll be adding additional security cameras as soon as possible," said Wayde B. Byard, the school system's spokesman.

The fire Friday night damaged a 20-by-20-foot area of the 11,000-square-foot playground, which is used by thousands of Loudoun children. Discovery Park, which opened in October 2006, is billed as an interactive playground that combines educational discovery with old-fashioned play. The playground has components that teach science, history, art, health, math and music. [More]

New Arsenic Testing Ends Shutdown at Fort Reno Park
Officials Call Earlier Results a 'False Positive'
By Paul Duggan
Washington Post
May 29, 2008

Officials reopened Fort Reno Park in Northwest Washington yesterday, saying recent extensive tests have found no unsafe levels of arsenic in the soil there.

The 33-acre field, a popular site for sports and concerts in the Tenleytown neighborhood, was abruptly closed to the public May 14 after the U.S. Geological Survey said soil samples showed arsenic levels of as much as 1,100 parts per million -- about 25 times the limit of 43 parts per million set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But those test results turned out to be "a false positive," officials said yesterday.

"We are happy to say that our initial report in this case was incorrect," said Michael G. Gauldin, a spokesman for the Geological Survey, who joined Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and other officials at a news conference at the park. [More]

Learn more about soil testing

New York's Original Kazoo Co. stays true to name
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press
May 27, 2008

The name of the place says it all: The Original Kazoo Co. And, boy, do its owners mean original.

The same belt and pulley machines that stamped and shaped the world's first metal kazoos circa 1900 still stamp and shape kazoos today. The machines are still in the same building, making the same ker-thwunk sound as they perforate, fold and shape.

The finished product hasn't changed, either. The palm-sized, submarine-shaped musical instrument still makes a tinny vibration when someone hums into it.

If there was ever the temptation to modernize the kazoo-making operation as the business changed hands over the years, it didn't last.

"It really would kind of spoil the fun of coming here if you couldn't see things as they were," Karen Smith said as she scanned the factory floor, now more working museum than manufacturing facility. "It's wonderful for our country to know that long ago, they invented this way of manufacturing and it still works today."

The Original Kazoo Co. operates on Main Street in a farm town southwest of Buffalo known as much for its yearly corn festival as kazoos. [More]

Discuss your favorite childhood toys and memories in the Forums!

The end of recess: Schools continue cutbacks in unstructured play
By Mark Sommer
The Buffalo News
May 27, 2008

Valerie Wales often has energy to spare at home. That’s because the first-grader doesn’t burn enough of it in school.

“My daughter sometimes gets to the end of the day, and she’s not ready for bed until she wrestles with her dad or gets chased around the house. She hasn’t run out of energy yet,” said Beth Elkins, an Allentown resident whose daughter attends Bennett Park Montessori Center.

The reason?

“Limited playing time” at school, Elkins said.

It’s a common complaint. Recess — considered unstructured play time, as opposed to physical instruction — is on the wane for large numbers of children, at least compared with when Elkins, 36, was growing up, according to researchers who have studied trends in play.

The decline in school recess slowly began about 30 years ago, researchers say, when one or two 15-or 20- minute recesses plus an hour lunch break were still the norm. And the decline continues to occur despite research showing unstructured play promotes learning while releasing energy and stress and minimizing disruptive behaviors.

A significant factor in more recent years has been an increased emphasis on standardized testing in response to demands for greater academic accountability. [More]

Learn more about how unstructured playtime aids academic performance and more.

Become a Playmaker and advocate against recess cutbacks.

System offers hands-on playtime
By Andrew Barksdale
The Fayette Observer
May 25, 2008

The four Stonehenge-like towers, with upbeat music and flashing lights, beckon anyone for a game of fun, skill and physical activity.

The unusual electronic playground system is called Neos. Two of the units recently arrived in Fayetteville -- the first city in the Carolinas to get them.

At Honeycutt Park on Fort Bragg Road, children after school last week flocked to Neos, with its sleek purple towers standing over 6 feet tall.

Ryan Wolf, who is 6, pressed the button to play Bubble Burst, which requires players to hit buttons on the towers when they light up. He darted back and forth, using his arms and his feet to reach the buttons. Soon, three children joined him, stretching, jumping and bending. [More]

Have you or your kids tried Neos? Discuss your experience in the Forums.

Playground destroyed again by fire
By Bill Lindelof
Sacramento Bee
May 26, 2008

For the second time in two years, a community playground has been burned to the ground in Sacramento's Jefferson Park.

The playground, also known as Fort Natomas, was a total loss following a suspicious blaze that began in the early morning hours Monday. Arsonists destroyed the same playground at 2001 Pebblewood in the summer of 2006.

After that blaze, neighbors rebuilt the playground in a seven-day construction campaign that relied on hundreds of volunteers, hundreds of Natomas residents and people from outside the neighborhood assisted in the effort. Businesses and individuals donated materials. Restaurants donated food for the volunteers, many of whom worked in the rain. [More]

Discuss playground vandalism issues in our Forums

For Kirk Douglas and wife, the playground's the thing

By Janet Kornblum
USA TODAY
May 26, 2008

LOS ANGELES — When the gates open and Kirk Douglas — yes, the Academy Award-winning actor, now 91 — strides across the blacktop, fans giggle and crane their necks for a better look. When he approaches them with his arm outstretched, they reach up to slap high-fives.

There may not be a red carpet here, and true, the photographers mostly consist of small arms hoisting cellphone cameras overhead.

But make no mistake: This is a bona-fide premiere — just not for one of Douglas' movies.

On this overcast day in May, the fans are parents, students and friends of Beethoven Street Elementary School in Culver City. They are here to thank Douglas and his wife, Anne, for the colorful play structure on the once-barren playground, courtesy of the Anne & Kirk Douglas Playground Award.

The Douglases have been fixing up school playgrounds for 11 years. And on Wednesday, when they dedicate their 401st Los Angeles-area playground, Kirk Douglas will slide down one last slide — something he does at every dedication — and call it mission accomplished.

"What nobody acknowledges is that every dedication I risk my life," he says with a laugh. "I'm getting too old for this."

Read the full article
Learn how your community can build a playground from start to finish

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Arlington School District is filing a lawsuit against three companies that provided the wood chips at Beth Anderson Elementary after a playground fire broke out last year.

The district alleges the wood fiber chips ignited and destroyed the school's plastic play equipment, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

Read the full article

Learn more about playground safety and surfacing

Church playground honors teen girl's memory
BY JILL DOSS-RAINES
Lexington (N.C.) Dispatch

A new playground at Higher Ground Baptist Church is not only a place for its youngest members to enjoy, but also a memorial for one of its youngest members.

Thirteen-year-old Amber Everhart died from a rare, quick-acting pneumonia March 1, 2007. In their grief, friends and church members began searching for a way to remember Amber, a vivacious young lady who loved playing with the younger children on the church's former, smaller playground.

Church member Tisha Loflin decided a memorial fund to build a larger playground with more equipment was a good way to honor Amber's memory, said her father, Wayne Everhart, who also worked on getting the playground ready. Amber's mother is Teresa Everhart.

After nearly a year of donations and planning, the playground was completed April 26 and dedicated April 27. It features a new large, wooden jungle gym set with a slide, club house and swings that sit near the former lone play set. Colorful metal see-saws and wooden and concrete benches are also part of the playground.

Officials have 'Big' plans for playground
May 20, 2008
By Pat Schager
Joliet (Ill). HERALD NEWS

ROMEOVILLE -- Remembering when actor Tom Hanks stepped on a giant keyboard at FAO Schwarz and hopped around to play a song in the movie "Big," park planners thought, "Why not?"

And thus was born the concept for Deer Crossing Park's musical playground and amphitheater in Romeoville.

With a $400,000 grant and matching village funds, the park will be nestled in a natural wooded section of Romeoville known as O'Hara Woods on the north side of 135th Street between Weber Road and Illinois 53. The grant is part of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Open Space and Land Acquisition and Development Grant Program.

Residents will have amenities such as an amphitheater, picnic shelter, playground, trails and prairie plantings, according to village officials. The playground will be a music-themed environment kids can enjoy.

"The playground will have chimes and drums and color-cushioned places for kids to run and play," said Kelly Rajzer, director of parks and recreation.

There are plans for a large amphitheater with stage and bench seating to accommodate 500, and lawn seating for 1,000.

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Playground stands in honor of Connor Simonson
By Shino Omura
Lancaster (Pa.) Eagle Gazette
May 20, 2008

BALTIMORE - For years, Kathy Simonson watched her son Connor Simonson kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball and laugh with his friends at Alt Park in Baltimore.

At age 10, Connor passed away in November 2006 after being diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.

The disease is a type of blood cancer and is the most common type of leukemia in children under the age of 15, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The memories of Connor will now serve as a foundation for the rest of the community to make new memories of their own.

With his family's consent and support, a playground was built in memory of Connor inside Alt Park.

The public will be able to see and enjoy the playground equipment following the dedication ceremony for Connor Simonson Memorial Playground on Sunday.

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Five Things That A Playground Can Teach Us About Relationships
From Bailey WorkPlay blog

This weekend, I took Katie and Leah to one of the many local parks here in Austin. The brilliant thing about our city parks are the really neat playgrounds…and on weekends, there are always a gaggle of kids enjoying the freedom of playing. As I watched, it occurred to me (with a little help from Jason) that there is a lot we can learn about relationships - and in many cases relearn - from observing how kids interact with each other.

1. Lack of judgment
Watch kids play and first thing you notice is that there is a lack of personal judgment taking place. When a new boy or girl enters the scene, they don’t fret and wonder how this fellow player is going to add to their social circle. They don’t worry if hanging around with them is going to build or kill their cred as someone cool or hip. They don’t get hung up in a bunch of the social tangles that we create everyday. The only question they have is whether they want to have fun and play.

...

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What values did you learn on the playground?

Don't touch! Will rule make kids feel safer?
By TERRY COLLINS
Star Tribune
May 17, 2008

Excerpt:

But Jamie Henriksen, a volunteer coordinator for the school's PTA for the past three years, said kids should not have to be afraid to play with each other.

She describes her two sons -- Jake, an 8-year-old second-grader, and Lucas, a 6-year-old kindergartner -- as playful boys who could be hugging each other one minute and wrestling the next.

And they're no different than other kids who like to play outside.

No more freeze tag?

"The hardest place to supervise is the playground. There's kids running around everywhere," Henriksen said in a telephone interview. "They could trip, get hit accidentally with a tetherball or by a jump rope. Things happen.

"But if a kid should be afraid of another kid on the playground, then there's a bigger issue that needs to be addressed."

During the conversation, she asked her son Lucas what the school told him about playing tag.

"You shouldn't do it," Lucas replied.

But do you like to play tag? she asked him.

"Yes," he said, before running off to play outside.

She then asked her nephew, A.J., 8, a second-grader at Armatage, who had two other siblings who also went there.

"I like to play freeze tag. It's my favorite, and now I can't play it," A.J. said, describing a game where once you're tagged, you have to stop until a non-tagger touches you to unfreeze you. The game promotes teamwork, Henriksen said.

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Parks are places for neighbors to gather. They're supposed to be sanctuaries from the stress of city life, a place where you can stroll aimlessly among shady groves or lie flat on the grass and let your mind discern faces in the clouds drifting overhead.

Among Stockton's parks, Louis Park is a gem. The 74-acre spread along a stretch of the Stockton Deep Water Channel is famous for Pixie Woods, an adventure land for children. Louis Park has the city's most heavily used softball complex and offers one of the last free launch ramps into the Delta.

...

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Watch the KaBOOM! Public Service Announcement on childhood obesity

Obesity Threatens a Generation

An epidemic of obesity is compromising the lives of millions of American children, with burgeoning problems that reveal how much more vulnerable young bodies are to the toxic effects of fat.

In ways only beginning to be understood, being overweight at a young age appears to be far more destructive to well-being than adding excess pounds later in life. Virtually every major organ is at risk. The greater damage is probably irreversible.

...

On a playground, obesity exerts a cruel price. "It robs them of their childhood, really," said Melinda S. Sothern of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. "They're robbed of the natural enjoyment of being a kid -- being able to play outside, run. If they have high blood pressure, they have a constant risk of stroke."

But today, for most middle-class American children, “going out to play” has gone the way of the dodo, the typewriter and the eight-track tape. From 1981 to 1997, for instance, University of Michigan time-use studies show that 3- to 5-year-olds lost an average of 501 minutes of unstructured playtime each week; 6- to 8-year-olds lost an average of 228 minutes. (On the other hand, kids now do more organized activities and have more homework, the lucky devils!) And forget about walking to school alone. Today’s kids don’t walk much at all (adding to the childhood obesity problem).

...

Well, no. We parents have sold ourselves a bill of goods when it comes to child safety. Forget the television fear-mongering: Your child stands about the same chance of being struck by lightning as of being the victim of what the Department of Justice calls a “stereotypical kidnapping.” And unless you live in Baghdad, your child stands a much, much greater chance of being killed in a car accident than of being seriously harmed while wandering unsupervised around your neighborhood.

Skenazy responded to the firestorm generated by her column by starting a new Web site — freerangekids.wordpress.com — dedicated to giving “our kids the freedom we had.” She explains: “We believe in safe kids. ... We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security detail.”

A local woman is focusing her energy on something positive in the wake of her father’s unexpected death last month.

While Mandee Brown is mourning the loss of her father, Jimmy Gudroe, who was Dexter’s fire chief, she also is working to refurbish a community playground in his memory.

"My dad loved kids. He never missed a fire prevention week," Brown said Thursday. So it seemed only fitting to Brown that she enlist some help and work to raise money to replace the Dexter Community Playground equipment on Crosby Street with a firetruck and other assorted playground equipment. Her goal would be to have the playground renamed the Jimmy Gudroe Memorial Playground.

Brown met with the Dexter Town Council earlier this month to announce the project.

Gudroe had previously served with the Garland Fire Department for five years before he joined the Dexter Fire Department, where he served for 16 years, the latter two as chief.

High Arsenic Levels Found At Fort Reno Park in NW
By Paul Duggan
Washington Post
May 15, 2008

A 33-acre federal park in Northwest Washington was abruptly shut yesterday and will remain closed indefinitely after soil analysis found arsenic levels far above what the federal government considers safe, officials said.

Fort Reno Park, near Woodrow Wilson High School in the Tenleytown neighborhood, was closed at 6 a.m. Terry Slonecker, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said he informed the D.C. Department of the Environment that soil samples contained arsenic levels up to 25 times higher than federal regulations allow.

...

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Learn how to get the soil tested at your park or playground site

The recent playground build in Marietta, Ga. (the 1,000th Home Depot/KaBOOM! build in 1,000 days) featured some new and unique play equipment you might not be familiar with: Evos™.

The equipment is produced by Landscape Structures, who describe Evos™  like so:

Evos™ playstructures offer almost endless physical, mental and creative challenges. Kids love deciding how to play on equipment they've never seen before. They can't get enough of the suspended play events and bouncy Corocord® climbing cables, which build upper-body strength and core strength as kids balance and counterbalance their bodies against the forces of gravity.

You can see kids playing on the Evos™ equipment in Marietta in our photo gallery.

Learn more Evos™ here.

Playground to be work of full community
May 13, 2008
By Laurel Walker
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Governmental gobbledygook aside, something special is under way in Oconomowoc.

Gov. Jim Doyle proclaimed last Thursday "Oconomowoc Community Built Playground Design Day" - huh? - and not to be outdone, Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas followed suit.

Cathy Schreiber doesn't mind a politician bringing that "sense of importance" to a grass-roots project she cares about, so she brushed off my mockery of one more proclamation from the gubernatorial assembly line that bring us such gems as Root Canal Appreciation Day.

"Obviously, it got your attention," she noted. Touché.

What really gets my attention, though, is not a politician's pomp but a bottom-up effort of community volunteers to build a playground for children, fully accessible to those with disabilities right alongside those without.

This one looks like it will be a doozy.

...

Read the full article

Learn how to make play a priority with your elected officials

Beacon residents raising funds for playground equipment
By DUANE NOLLEN
The Oskaloosa (Iowa) Herald
May 9, 2008

OSKALOOSA — The city of Beacon needs some new playground equipment at the City Hall grounds, and Jennifer Thomas-Maxwell has been working for about a year to make it happen.

...

Thomas-Maxwell said there will be many family activities during the two-day fund-raising event at City Hall. There will be carnival rides, games, concessions, a bake sale, face painting, a street dance and an auction.

“We’ll also be doing family pictures,” she said. Bubbafly Photography will do the family portraits.

“We’ll have small games. … There will be a greased pig contest Saturday … and a street dance Saturday night,” she said.

Almost 30 local businesses are contributing $4,494 of merchandise for the auction.

...

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Check out the fundraising section of our Toolkit for more ideas!

Engineering a playground
By Jodi Blasé
Burlington (Mass.) Union
May 08, 2008

Mary Sweeney is an engineer who took time off to raise her family, only to discover her former occupation could provide a much-needed service to Francis Wyman School. Sweeney’s involvement began almost two years ago when she started attending PTO meetings.

“There were discussions about renovations in the playground, especially around the Burlington LABBB program. The safety of the playground had deteriorated so much that they could no longer bring the children out to play. There was even one section of the playground that was near the school windows that created dust in the classroom and the teachers wanted it paved over,” she said.

By the last PTO meeting in May of ’07, the board learned that both money and plans weren’t approved. Sweeny, who had been voted secretary, along with other officers of the PTO, thought they should take matters into their own hands to help initiate a new play area.

“We thought it would help the school if the PTO formed a playground committee so that there would be another group of advocates to promote the cause,” she said.

...

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Become a Playmaker to advocate for play in your community!

Some Thoughts on Playground Safety
Posted by Erik Wemple on May. 2, 2008
Washington City Paper

In today’s Slate, Tom Vanderbilt does good work in attacking the blight of playground equipment on America’s lawns. You know the landscape: Brightly colored swingsets and slides, no kids on them, sitting on a pitch of grass. They’re eyesores, they never get used, and they become a big environmental liability when it comes time to dispose of them.

So good on Vanderbilt there.

Bad on Vanderbilt here:

In her book American Playgrounds, Susan Solomon notes how the fear of injuries and their litigious consequences forced the closing, or banal “post-and-platform” retrofitting, of many playgrounds. Gone are the kinds of things that defined my own childhood: terrifying metal “monkey bars” pitched over a pit of hard gravel or the towering, twisting, all-metal “tornado slide,” as we called it, which was at once the most exhilarating and the most dangerous thing in my young life.

...

Let’s take this thing point by point. I’ll admit I haven’t read Solomon’s book. But I can tell you this: I have a couple of very young kids and wherever I am, I’m always in the market for a playground. I haven’t had trouble finding them, either. So if there’s a big trend toward closing playgrounds, perhaps there were too many to begin with.

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Clearwater's playgrounds are disappearing
By Mike Donila
St. Petersburg Times
April 29, 2008

CLEARWATER — Astra Dialinakis used to walk her 2-year-old daughter, Fotini, to the Country Hollow Park playground almost every day.

But on a recent morning, they were greeted by a wrecking crew in the midst of taking down the youngster's favorite swing set.

Dialinakis consoled the teary toddler, telling her the city would build a new one.

Not true.

The small playground was coming down for good.

And as more playgrounds in Clearwater age, they will follow.

"I had to lie to her and say we'll get another one," said Dialinakis, 31. "With the little vocabulary she knew, she tried to tell her dad that they took away the swings. It was devastating."

Now the family drives to a playground behind the Countryside branch library. But that, too, is set to close.

...

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Become a Playmaker: Raise your voice for play!

'You're It!' May Again Be Heard at Va. School
Michael Alison Chandler
The Washington Post
April 24, 2008

Students at Kent Gardens Elementary School in McLean are refining their dodging skills and polishing their recess etiquette this week in preparation for a game of tag.

Three weeks ago, Principal Robyn Hooker halted the pastime, saying that it had become too aggressive. Her decision set off debate among parents -- some appreciative of her caution and others wary that the restriction was excessive. Now, a committee of administrators and teachers has devised a plan to reinstate the game.

After a week of "reorientation lessons on playground safety" in physical education classes, classroom discussions of safe recess behavior and monitoring by teachers on the blacktop, students are likely to be yelling "You're it!" by tomorrow.

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Once shuttered city playground now getting upgrade

BY MIKE FAHER

Just one year ago, the gates of Johnstown’s controversial skateboard park were locked.

Now, the Fairfield Avenue facility’s future looks bright due to the efforts of a volunteer organization.

Members of the West End Improvement Group on Monday kicked off improvements designed to transform the park into a greener, more user-friendly space for kids and nearby residents.

And they noted that more cash is needed to make those plans a reality.

...

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The housing market is tanking, but one kind of real estate is gaining value in major U.S. cities: parkland.

After years of infighting over what to do with the few remaining areas of open space in metropolitan areas, several communities are creating huge urban parks — several times the size of New York's 843-acre Central Park.

"We grew so rapidly in the '80s and '90s in the rate we were consuming land, people did become alarmed," says David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, a national coalition promoting green space. "This desire for parkland and capitalizing on natural assets is really taking hold."

It is spurred by several factors, including mounting environmental concerns, improved property values for park-side real estate, increased demand for green space from health-conscious people moving back to cities and a greater availability of vacant industrial land.

...

''There's growing awareness of the importance of providing green space to cities around the country,'' said City Parks Alliance and National Association for Olmsted (one of the Central Park designers) Parks Executive Director Catherine Nagel, with Yale University professor and park planner Alexander Garvin stressing, ''The environmental movement is looking to use as much of the landscape as possible to clean the air, provide natural drainage and do the kind of nature-friendly work that parks do.''

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School's playground delights the senses
Churchill Park opens facility

LOUISVILLE - Kendra Hall said she seldom takes her 18-year-old son Kyle to a playground.

Kyle has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair-bound. Usually, Hall can't push his wheelchair through the grass that surrounds many playgrounds, and if she can, there are no ramps to get Kyle up to the slides.

That all changed last week when Kyle's school, Churchill Park, opened a $307,000 sensory playground last week built for students with special needs.

It sits on a rubber-tiled surface -- no mulch -- and is equipped with ramps and has noise makers, bumpy slides and bright colors that play to several senses.

"This is the greatest thing this school could have done for these kids," Hall said shortly after going down a slide with Kyle, who clapped his hands and laughed. "He's absolutely loving this."

Churchill Park School, in south Louisville, is geared toward students with special needs. Most of its 96 students have a physical or mental disability.

...

Students from the school played on the playground for the first time at the ceremony.

They banged on the large drums, spun gadgets that made rattling noises and went down bumpy slides. Wheelchair-bound students sat on the fun-glider, which rocked its riders.

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Dance, auction boost Stratham playground plan

Monday, April 21, 2008
Foster’s (N.H.) Daily Democrat

PORTSMOUTH — Stratham residents and town officials brought out Afro wigs, fake handlebar mustaches, pastel dresses and knee-length stockings for the second Dancing with the Stratham Stars fundraiser Saturday night in the Sheraton Harborside hotel ballroom.

The event, put on by the Stratham Playground Committee and Stratham Recreation Commission, featured disco dancing, a silent auction and a raffle, with proceeds going to the second phase of construction for a children's playground at Stevens Park.

Claire Ellis, a mother of four and a member of the playground committee, led the ceremonies Saturday night. She said the group was hoping to raise $15,000 to cover the costs of adding a large playstructure maze to the existing playground.

...

Saturday's disco-themed event featured a collaborative "hustle" dance by town officials, including Recreation Department Director Tara Barker, the Rev. David Dodge of the Stratham Community Center, Assistant Fire Chief David Emanuel and Selectmen Kirk Scammon. Auction items on display included jewelry, handbags, sports memorabilia, artwork by local artists, pottery and gift certificates to local restaurants.

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Program gives disabled kids a place to play
Friday, April 18, 2008
New York Times News Service

LOS ANGELES -- The mission a decade ago was simple: Build "one beautiful playground" for kids with disabilities so they too could soar on swings, frolic in sandboxes and traverse bridges.

For the folks at Shane's Inspiration -- a nonprofit started in 1997 to honor Shane Alexander, who only lived two weeks after being born paralyzed -- that mission seemed strong enough to get the roughly 180,000 kids with disabilities in Southern California to come out and play.

But the children didn't come.

"There were a lot of haunting questions over the last 10 years," said Tiffany Harris, program co-founder, along with Shane's parents, Catherine Curry-Williams and Scott Williams. "Where are the children? Why aren't they coming? And how do we remove the bias? We didn't want this to be a hollow mission."

Today, the program has turned a corner with 16 universally accessible playgrounds in Southern California and more on the way, supported in part by the state's Proposition 40.

There also is an educational program in 40 schools aimed at combating bias against children with disabilities, and monthly play dates have brought out thousands of kids.

And now, waiting around the bend, are 80 playgrounds planned throughout the country and as far away as India.

...

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Back to the playground
Forget the gym. For a good workout, look no further than your neighborhood park.
Wisconsin State Journal

For your next workout, personal trainer Jim Post wants you to take a page from your child 's playbook.
Actually, he wants you to visit their playground.

There -- among the climbers, slides and swingsets -- you 'll find endless opportunities for staying in great all-around shape, Post says.

Keeping fit naturally, outside and with nothing fancy in terms of equipment is the philosophy behind Post 's new Wisconsin Union mini-course offering: "The Playground Workout. "

...

Even those without a lot of time for a workout can use Post 's playground ideas.

"A workout like this does not have to be long to benefit from it, " he says. "Even 15 minutes would be enough to work up a sweat and get the blood pumping."

And if you hit the playground with kids in tow, the workout is great because there 's plenty they can do right along with you. Even a simple game of tag can count toward the running portion of the workout -- and climbing, too, if you 're going up and down trying to avoid being "IT," for example.

"Any playground with a metal swingset and sand, picnic tables and maybe a carousel will work just fine, " he says. "The more stuff to play on, the more you can use your imagination to make a boring exercise into something new and challenging. "

...

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Church spends Sunday giving Citrus a total makeover

BYLINE: By SARAH KINGSBURY-Staff Writer
Chico Enterprise-Record

CHICO -- Children at Citrus School will be surprised to find a colorful new playground on campus today, installed over the weekend with the help of hundreds of churchgoers.

An estimated 350 volunteers at Bidwell Presbyterian Church helped paint a holistic playground on an asphalt lot behind the main school building.

"For every fine motor skill, there's a larger motor skill that goes with it," said Jan Reale, who drummed up the idea of a holistic playground in her master's thesis at Chico State University in 1980. The first one was put in at Paradise Elementary School, where she is a second-grade teacher, and about 60 have since been installed around the state.

Reale said she became involved with the project because her son and daughter-in-law are members at the church.

Before the asphalt lot was painted there was only blacktop with a few hopscotch squares to play on. Now students can study multiplication, reading and the life cycle of a salmon to name only a few while playing colorfully painted games.

Each part of the playground is based on teaching children a cognitive or motor skill using visual discrimination, embedded in bright shapes, maps and diagrams.

The reading railroad, for example, winds around the middle of the playground, each track displaying a different sight word. There are also informative paintings everywhere, including a giant diagram of the heart, the food pyramid, the food chain, the solar system, a map of the United States and a map of the world.

"The thing is it's unlimited," Reale said. "It can keep on growing as long as you have room."

...

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A playground pastime is getting a timeout this spring at a McLean elementary school.

Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School, has told students they may no longer play tag during recess after determining that the game of chasing, dodging and yelling "You're it!" had gotten out of hand. Hooker explained to parents in a letter this month that tag had become a game "of intense aggression."

The principal said that her goal is to keep students safe and that she hopes to restore tag (as well as touch football, also now on hold) after teachers and administrators review recess policies.

The decision has touched off a debate among parents. Some call the restriction an example of overzealous rulemaking that fails to address root problems and undermines children's development; others say it's best to err on the side of caution.

"We are regulating the fun out of normal childhood activity," said Jan van Tol, father of a Kent Gardens sixth-grader. "In our effort to be so overprotective, we are not letting children be children."

Gerri Swarm, secretary of the school's Parent-Teacher Association, said she was glad the principal was taking seriously student concerns about being pushed or shoved. "In this day and age, you can't dismiss this as something not to worry about," she said.

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April 8, 2008 
By Dan Geringer, Philadelphia Daily News

Apr. 8--ON MOST NIGHTS, Anthony "Ant" Washington leaves his wife and children sleeping at home and goes over to his mother's house on Orianna Street near Dauphin, across from the baseball field, so he can wake up often in the wee hours, walk the field and make sure no one is messing with the miracle.

Responding to a Daily News report on how 10 years of city neglect ruined a youth baseball field at 4th and Dauphin streets, urban and suburban angels rushed to the rescue last week and saved the summer for 300 neighborhood children.

"This is amazing," said Washington, longtime Nelson Playground rec leader, standing on the resurrected field in the historically underserved Fairhill section of North Philadelphia, which has always been his home. "This looks like a completely different ball field."

It is. Only two weeks ago, the field was a dangerous mess.

A deeply rutted footpath ran across the outfield from Leithgow Street to Orianna Street, carved into the turf by residents who removed bolts in the chain-link security gates and used the field as a short cut -- walking, biking, pushing strollers.

The danger of a child breaking a leg while chasing a fly ball across that trenchlike footpath made the field unplayable.

Because the infield was built over the foundations of abandoned rowhouses on a demolished block of 4th Street, sinkholes sometimes develop, threatening to swallow base paths and the pitcher's mound.

Drug users discarded dozens of used syringes around the benches where the boys and girls, ages 4 to 14, will sit while waiting to bat.

All that changed dramatically after the Daily News story.

...

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The playground as a place for some serious fun
A growing body of research suggests play helps kids build social skills, aids their intellectual development and is strongly linked to early literacy

Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun
Saturday, April 05, 2008

In 2003, officials at the Central Okanagan school district put forward a proposal to get rid of recess at its elementary schools. The idea was supported by all the district's principals, who were convinced the plan would reduce misbehaviour by kids and leave teachers more time for instruction.

Parents, however, rebelled.

And after a survey found 98 per cent of parents opposed to the idea, the district backed down and recess was saved.

To many parents, the importance of play is obvious -- children, especially young children, need unstructured time to pretend, interact with their peers and explore the world around them.

Yet, at the same time, play is increasingly under attack: from schools trying to cram more into the day and, often, from parents themselves, who see it as an expendable luxury when compared to more "productive" activities like tutoring, organized sports or piano lessons.

Indeed, time-use surveys conducted by the University of Michigan suggest that, since the early 1980s, the amount of time U.S. children devote to free play has dropped considerably -- in the case of outdoor play, by 50 per cent -- with a corresponding increase in organized sports, music lessons and studying.

"We have this culture of fear. Everybody wants their children to be a success story. And they think the best way to do that is to shove more information at them," said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, director of the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia and an expert on play.

However, a growing body of research suggests that play is more than just fun and games -- that it serves a real purpose in children's social and intellectual development.

"A lot of what we learn in the sandbox and in free play actually builds the skills of working together and figuring out how to negotiate with one another," said Hirsh-Pasek. "Sometimes as adults we get so far away from their world, we forget how rich it can be."

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Get Up ... Get Out!
Spring Brings Encouragement of Exercise

By BETHANY A. ROMANEK Education Writer
The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register, Wheeling, W.V.

WHEELING — Twenty years ago, a day like today would have seen local playgrounds overflowing with children of all ages, eager to get outside and shake off the winter blues.

Now, however, youngsters often opt to stay inside to listen to their iPods, text message their friends and play games or surf the Internet on their computer.

And it appears the lack of physical activity is taking its toll on youth, as childhood obesity rates are soaring nationwide.

David R. Hanna, department chairman for athletic training at Wheeling Jesuit University, said the burden of getting children to be active needs to fall on parents.

That’s easier said than done for some families, however, especially when both parents work. Hanna said it’s easy for these moms and dads to get into the habit of placing a youngster in front of a television while they make dinner.

He also thinks technology plays a huge part in the abandonment of play yards.

“Parents can set an example,” Hanna said. “Obesity is obviously a problem and in our state, we are one of the worst in the country with obesity rates. ... A 5-year-old can’t drive to the park or get to the park. It’s up to the parents — healthy eating choices and healthy daily activity choices.

“I think the biggest thing we have to worry about with children being inactive is they become overweight,” Hanna added. “That’s a big issue with today’s children. ... It strengthens their bones and it increases their self-esteem when playing with other kids, and it decreases stress as well.”

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Looking back on his own childhood growing up in Wheeling, Hanna said he remembers a time when he was in high school and it was impossible to find an empty playground or a free basketball court. Now, however, Hanna said it really sticks out when a playground is full.

“The biggest thing is it should be fun,” Hanna said.

“The No. 1 job for a kid is to play, and they learn about themselves and their boundaries. Make it fun and it coincides with quality time spent.

“We need to stress it’s such a quality time, an intimate time and a connecting time with the parents — and children truly need that time,” Hanna added.

“Take them fishing, take them to events — there are all kinds of things around here in the parks and downtown, and it builds a stronger family bond.”

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Merrick (N.Y.) Herald

The room was filled to capacity and many residents stood in the doorway at a recent South Merrick Community Civic Association meeting that was held to discuss proposed upgrades to Julian Lane Park.

Robert Ward, the district supervisor for the Town of Hempstead Department of Parks & Recreation, was invited to the meeting to answer residents' questions about the town park.

Jodi Turk, one of the chairs of the civic group's park committee, opened the meeting by expressing the community's concerns about the park. "I'm a mom like everyone else here, and I sit at the park and complain like we all do," Turk said. "The sandbox hasn't been cleaned in 30 years, there's glass in it [and] the playground isn't safe."

Turk and several other residents said they'd like two climbing structures, one for younger children and one for older children, to ensure that children play safely. Right now, there is one climbing structure for younger children.

Turk also pointed out that the fence was in disrepair, with holes with rusty metal. She and several residents were upset by an anti-Semitic symbol that they said hadn't been removed from the jungle gym since the summer.

"I'm going to get the JDL [Jewish Defense League] and Newsday down here if it's not cleaned up by this weekend," said Bill Vilkas. "There is no excuse; whatever it costs, it has to be taken off."

Visibly upset, Ward told Vilkas that he didn't know of the swastika and promised to have it removed immediately.

"Some other repairs need to be fixed now," Sarah Greenstein said. "How about if I go there with my tool box and send my bill to the town."

Ward suggested that she not do that, adding that certain issues could be dealt with now by the town -- those that presented dangerous conditions. "I can take care of the emergency repairs, like cleaning the sandbox and fixing the fence," Ward said. "But we can't make major changes without approval of town hall."

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Play's the thing
Swingsets and slides? So yesterday. Creative new structures set young imaginations free.

By Kathleen Burge
Boston Globe Staff / March 30, 2008

On other city blocks, children play in towering villages of plastic, networks of tunnels and cubes that glow red and yellow and green. At other playgrounds, even the youngest visitors know what is expected of them. They climb up, they walk across, they slide down. And again. And again.

But on this pile of dirt along barren streets where the South End disappears into the Expressway, silver arms of galvanized steel arch and dip and twist. Here, there are no slides or swings. If you glanced over as you drove by, you might think you were gazing at a modern sculpture, something concocted by a tortured artist and his blowtorch.

This is the Dorado, a plaything for school-age children that its manufacturer argues will create a "physically, socially and emotionally valuable experience." Children must learn how to spin around on the asymmetrical bars. City officials hope they will climb and experiment and pretend.

Boston's newest playground, at the corner of Union Park and Albany streets, is not quite finished, so no one yet knows what the children will think. City park officials departed from their standard playground equipment and bought the Dorado - as well as the equally futuristic Asterope and the Spica - from a European company because South End neighbors wanted something more sculptured, less bright than the plastic and painted-metal contraptions at Peters Park, a few blocks away.

Contemporary playgrounds sprouting up in the urban core often bear little resemblance to their ancestors. Brookline's Monmouth Park playground, remodeled a few years ago, also has no swings or seesaws or monkey bars. Instead, its triangular steel frame supports a weaving web, a web nest, and a clatterbridge. The playground, designed by Joanne J. Hiromura of Acton, pays homage to the old firehouse, now serving as an arts center, next door. Hiromura rescued a fire hydrant, hoses, instrument panels and steering wheels from the town's salvage yard. She designed bi-level tables, one side geared for toddlers, the other for adults.

"I think playgrounds should be places that everybody likes to go, not just kids," said Hiromura. "They should be places that bring communities together. I would like to see them beautiful places, sculptural places that have something to say about the place, the community, the people."

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A recent article in Education World features a nonprofit called Sports4Kids, which values the importance of play and recess.

Excerpt:

"We know that play is essential to the emotional, social, and physical development of kids," explains Jill Vialet, founder and president of Sports4Kids. "We know that what happens in the classroom is important, but what happens on the playground is also vital to the health of kids and schools."

At a time when some schools are eliminating recess in favor of additional instructional time, Vialet believes that encouraging healthy play at recess is vital and can contribute to the classroom learning environment. Sports4Kids helps schools make the most of recess times, providing skilled coordinators who create a safe and structured environment and organize games and sports during recess periods. A nonprofit organization, it works side-by-side with physical education teachers to promote opportunities for physical activity.

"Last fall, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concluded that recess was the single best way to boost physical activity in kids. Because of cuts [in programs that engage kids in physical activity], there are actually more opportunities to teach and encourage kids to be more physically active in recess than there are in physical education or after-school programs," Vialet reported.

"Other studies have found that kids are more likely to engage in an activity over the course of their lives if they experience that activity as fun at a young age. So playing games -- especially games like kickball and four square games that anyone can learn quickly and enjoy -- is the best way to create that positive association with physical fitness."

Sports4Kids began in two Berkeley, California, elementary schools and today serves more than 50,000 students in 131 low-income public schools. The organization currently has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, D.C., and future expansion is planned.

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Grayhawk residents help build 7 playgrounds
Amy Brooks
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 18, 2008

SCOTTSDALE - Scottsdale's upscale Grayhawk community isn't lying down in the face of a slumping housing market.

Instead, homeowners are putting money back into their neighborhoods with $300,000 worth of state-of-the-art equipment for seven playgrounds. Two are done, the rest should be finished by mid-April.

Grayhawk resident Leslie Mouer said she's noticed a change in people of all ages in her neighborhood, Pinnacle.
 
"Everybody who drives by looks and has a big smile on their face," Mouer said. "It has made such a difference."

The 2,300-acre community is bringing decade-old play equipment up to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards and, said Clif Tait, president of the Grayhawk Community Association, telling Valley homebuyers that Grayhawk is on the cutting edge of Scottsdale's premier family communities.

"This association is solvent, it's got money, and it's investing that money back into the community," Tait said.

An Arizona Republic analysis, Valley Home Values, shows median home values in the 85255 zip code, where Grayhawk is located, rose 3.9 percent from 2006 to 2007 while many other Valley neighborhoods saw prices drop.

The median home price at Grayhawk is about $750,00, with housing ranging from $200,000 into the millions. Tait said Grayhawk isn't suffering as much as other Scottsdale communities, though home sales are down.

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From National Public Radio

It's playtime at the Geraldyn O. Foster Early Childhood Center in Bridgeton, N.J., and in one corner of a busy classroom, 4-year-olds Zee Logan and Emmy Hernandez want to play bookstore.

In a normal preschool, playing bookstore would be a pretty casual affair. They would just pick up some books, set the shiny toy cash register on the table by the blackboard, and get down to business.

But this isn't a normal school. It's based on the Tools of the Mind program. In other words, it's a school where almost every moment of the day is devoted in some way to teaching the kids — mostly low-income children who live in the poor surrounding community — how to regulate their behavior and emotions.

So before Emmy and Zee even think about picking up a toy, they sit down with their teacher at a small classroom table and fill out some paperwork.

That's right. Paperwork.

On a small blank form, they spell out their intentions. "I want to play bookstore," each girl writes with assistance from her teacher.

Then she draws a picture of herself playing bookstore.

Then, together with her teacher, she reads back her intention so that everyone is clear about what is going to happen.

Finally, each girl grabs an armful of props and makes her way to the corner, where (as in most preschool classrooms) strong disagreements about the appropriate way to play bookstore ensue...

Read the full article.

Share your thoughts about play, your memories of play, and more in the KaBOOM! Forums.

A state bond commission enthusiastically supports play as a priority at a local school in this article.

Excerpt:

"We want to create outstanding learning environments and that includes providing facilities for exercise and sports," Rell said in a statement. "I am pleased that the state can help fund these improvements at Springdale Elementary School."

State Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, who represents Springdale, said the money will give students a safe, state-of-the-art playground.

"It's a tremendous asset to the neighborhood and I'm very excited about it," Fox said in Rell's statement.

State Rep. James Shapiro, D-Stamford, said in the statement, "A philosopher once said that a sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world. I am extremely pleased to help Springdale students achieve that goal."

State Rep. Christel Truglia, D-Stamford, agreed.

"It is very important for our students to be able to excel inside and outside the classroom, but we need to give them the tools to do so," Truglia said in the statement.

Athletics and recreation "are just as crucial to the development of a child as the education that they will receive," said state Rep. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford. "I know that everyone involved in the eventual passage of this bond item recognizes its importance."

A story on National Public Radio on Feb. 22 discussed the evolution of play in the 20th century, and how that has impacted the cognitive development of children.

Excerpt:

Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.

"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."

But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.

Read "Old Fasioned Play Builds Serious Skills."

Published Feb. 17, 2008

Excerpt:

"Discussions about play force us to reckon with our underlying ideas about childhood, sex differences, creativity and success. Do boys play differently than girls? Are children being damaged by staring at computer screens and video games? Are they missing something when fantasy play is populated with characters from Hollywood’s imagination and not their own? Most of these issues are too vast to be addressed by a single field of study (let alone a magazine article). But the growing science of play does have much to add to the conversation. Armed with research grounded in evolutionary biology and experimental neuroscience, some scientists have shown themselves eager — at times perhaps a little too eager — to promote a scientific argument for play. They have spent the past few decades learning how and why play evolved in animals, generating insights that can inform our understanding of its evolution in humans too. They are studying, from an evolutionary perspective, to what extent play is a luxury that can be dispensed with when there are too many other competing claims on the growing brain, and to what extent it is central to how that brain grows in the first place."

Read "Taking Play Seriously."

by Ashley Wilson

ASHEVILLE – Seth Olson was always playing. As remembered by students, teachers and parents at Isaac Dickson Elementary, the 22-year-old kindergarten teacher had the heart and soul of a child, and he could frequently be seen traveling the school’s hallways with small children hanging from his limbs.

More than two years ago, Olson died suddenly in his sleep of a heart virus. The school community has since raised more than $75,000 to build Seth’s Playground at the school in his honor. Last weekend, 20 parents and teachers joined in the construction of the playground, which will be ready for children in about two weeks.

“I just think it’s fitting for someone who loved to play as much as he did,” said Susan Shillcock, Olson’s mom, who also teaches at Isaac Dickson Elementary. “The last time we were together at the school was playing on the kids’ playground.”

Complete with a climbing wall, swings, slide and large playing field, the new playground will finally give students in kindergarten through second grade their own place to play, instead of sharing space with the older kids.

GREENVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Cody McElrath staked out a spot to line up his miniature cars with two playmates, then exclaimed "let's ram them." Nearby, three girls played games or colored, looking up occasionally to watch an animated video.

The children showed no outward signs of the terror a few days earlier when tornadoes ravaged this area of western Kentucky. Instead, while their parents were busy reassembling their lives, the children were content playing inside a former school bus converted into a mobile playroom just for kids who have been through disasters.

"It's the simple things in life that keep kids busy and keep them happy," said Kathryn Martin, the driving force behind the goodwill bus. "And during times like this, parents are not able to, so why not come here and help and do a small part."

Martin's motivation to comfort kids in times of disaster sprang from her own tragedy. Her 2-year-old son, C.J., was among 25 people killed in 2005 by a tornado that struck the Evansville, Ind., area.

Now, the play area on wheels is known as "C.J.'s Bus." The outside of the bright yellow bus features pictures of C.J., smiling and giving a thumbs up sign.

The America's Promise Alliance has released it's list of the 2008 100 Best Communities for Young People. This list includes cities and small towns located across the United States that are wonderful places for youth to live and grow up. Included on this impressive list are 44 communities that have been recognized as 100 Best Communities three times in a row.

These 44 communities are featured here, in alphabetical order by state.

For a complete list of all 2008 winners, click here.

GREENSBURG, PA - Mike Olbeter said he believes an improved Coulter Playground in Greensburg will attract more children and discourage vandalism and other unwanted activity there.

"It's a good neighborhood, and a lot of kids are growing up there," Olbeter said.

A meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Jan. 26 at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art for residents who live near the playground. They will discuss what to do with a $10,000 KaBOOM grant that was awarded to make improvements at the playground in the city's 1st Ward, said organizer Steve Gifford, executive director of Greensburg Community Development Corp.

Gifford said the playground was discussed with neighbors during August meetings of My Neighborhood Program. That state program, known as the Elm Street Program, aims at enhancing areas near city downtown areas.

"One of the things they said they really wanted was improvements to the playground," Gifford said.

We've been doing a little web "surfing" recently and we ran across two sites that are doing some interesting sites with great general resources about play and playspaces. One of them is the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. In addition to having a great facility in Rochester, they put some effort into their web site and have included some good research about play and fun ideas for talking about the importance of play.

Peaceful Playgrounds has an informative blog by Dr. Melinda Bossenmeyer about play and playspaces. There is also a page of research about the benefits of play and a page on grants for playspaces. Have you run across any web sites that you've found useful (other than the KaBOOM! site, of course)? Log in and share the knowledge!

In November 2006, I wrote a short piece, conveying a request from the U.S. National Park Service for input from the American public about “how to tidy up the vast and grassy park in the center of the nation’s capital”.  That “vast and grassy area” is known to us who live around this area as simply “the mall” – the Smithsonian one, not the shopping one.

Well, the Park Service did its work, collecting comments, and as a result has recently published a nice online brochure that describes three alternatives for what to do with the Mall, each with a different emphasis.

Read more....

The first time I took my toddler son to the playground, I wiggled my toes in the sand and looked around, feeling amused and delighted to be revisiting a place that, twenty-five years earlier, had been a near-daily part of my life. The sun was shining, my baby boy was beautiful, and all seemed right with the world. I handed my son the shiny new bucket and shovel I'd purchased just for the occasion, and as I did, two older boys threw a baseball across the sandbox and beaned my son squarely in the head.

On another occasion, a four-year-old spontaneously decided that my precious infant was his archrival, and proceeded to terrorize him in front of indifferent parents. When I suggested to the boy that his roughness was inappropriate, he looked me in the eye and shouted, "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

TAMPA, FL - The small park maintained by the Palmetto Point Civic Association isn't particularly large or famous, just a gathering spot for local kids.

But after a swing set collapsed Sunday afternoon and left a 2-year-old girl with severe brain damage, the Manatee County park has become the focus of new concerns about the safety of private playgrounds that are open to the public.

Unlike 17 other states, Florida does not require regular safety inspections of private playgrounds to make sure they meet standards set by national organizations.

That means hundreds of local playgrounds run by neighborhood associations, churches and even day cares are not required to have certified inspections proving they are safe for kids, said Scott Burton, a licensed playground safety expert and the president of the St. Petersburg company Safety Play.

ASHEVILLE, NC -- Playing on a playground increases your child’s strength, endurance and flexibility. A family trip to the playground at your local park is a great outing that gives your kids the opportunity to be more active. Simply playing on a playground helps your children get their recommended amount of exercise each day.

There are many exercises you can add to a trip to the playground to make it even more beneficial for your child’s health. You may even want to try the following exercises yourself for a challenging workout.

If the playground isn’t too crowded, view it as a circuit. In other words, set up stations and certain exercises using each piece of equipment with a starting point and an ending point. Always remember to begin with a warm-up by briskly walking or jogging around the perimeter of the playground for about five minutes.