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.

The Land Of Pure Imagination
New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
July 14, 2008

The wise philosopher, Willy Wonka, once said, “There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.” Now, with physical improvements to Brownsville Playground and the addition of the Rockwell Group’s mobile Imagination Playground in a BOX, children’s imaginations can expand all summer long. [More]

The Power of the "Imagination Playground"
A Creator's Guide
July 16, 2008
Well, high fives - and fist bumps - to architect David Rockwell, whose is applying his genius for creating spaces to a new venture called "Imagination Playground" - an collaborative initiative with urban playground king Kaboom to offer children (especially those in low-income neighborhoods) innovative, colorful playspaces to let their imaginations run wild. [More]

Learn more about KaBOOM! and Imagination Playground.

Dr. Kal's Weight Loss Blog featured the playground builds by KaBOOM! and CNN's Fit Nation on Friday. Here's an excerpt:

It is great what they did for the children of Metairie. It will help get these children more active and get them away from the video games, the television, and the Internet. Increased activity is one of the best strategies to prevent and cure childhood obesity.

The CNN Fit Nation team has inspired me. I am going to research KaBOOM! and try to get some playgrounds built in the Atlanta/Decatur area.

Check it out!

Beneveloent Blogger Project
By Geggie
So...What Else, What Else, What Else?
June 07, 2008

My buddy, Brian, shared this project with me last month. He's on his second month and I'm just now getting around to doing my part.

Basically, here's the deal. I'm making a commitment to do something charitable each month. I generally do this, but I'm instituting this as a form of accountability for myself and to hopefully get you involved. Thus, the Benevolent Blogger Project. I am planning to contribute 3% of my income each month AND 3% of my time. I'm not sharing what the dollar figure is, but the time is one day.

I'm kicking off this month with a donation to Kaboom! Kaboom! is a non-profit organization that builds playgrounds for children. They have a committment that there should be a playground within walking distance of every neighborhood in American. Isn't that cool?

For my time commitment, I was in Durham, NC this week and participated in building a playground. This playground was in Hope's Crossing. Hope's Crossing is the first ever "Green" Habitat for Humanity subdivision in NC. There was a building blitz this week and 10 houses were built in just FIVE DAYS! Yes, you read that right. Five days!!

The cherry on top was the playground for the kids! [More]

Learn more ways to volunteer with KaBOOM!.

Donate to KaBOOM!.

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.

...

Read the full article
What values did you learn on the playground?

When you picture your dream playground, what do you see? A castle? Lots and lots of slides? How about a big playhouse?

Children were asked to dream about and then draw their ideal playground Feb. 26 at the KaBOOM! Design Day for the Takoma Park, Md. location of CentroNía, a Washington, D.C.-based, multilingual, youth development nonprofit. Some children drew traditional playground equipment, while others let their imaginations run wild and included wildlife, a swimming pool, a spaceship, and a fire truck.

In a little over two months, some of those dreams will become reality when the old wooden play structure on site is removed and replaced with a brightly-colored, brand-new structure that will be built in just one day by 250 volunteers. Two hundred of those volunteers will come from the Comcast Corporation, who are also funding the creation of the new playground as part of their Comcast Cares Day May 3.

“We’re very excited to have the project done here,” said Rosalba Acosta, director of the Takoma Park location of CentroNía. “As you can see, it’s needed.”

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....

For many adults, the onset of winter means frozen car locks, fender bender causing ice, and a sore back from shoveling snow. For a child, however, winter means snowball fights, snowmen, eating icicles, and (hopefully) at least one day off school.

Out of the thousands of different ways to play in the snow, my absolute, number one, king and queen of activities has always been and shall forever remain sledding.

Oh, if there were only a way to reproduce that terrifying and exhilarating rush of cold air and snow slicing into your face as you rocket down a miniature mountain of compressed snow and ice on a $15 piece of plastic or decades old toboggan sled.