Do you have a favorite unique playspace?
This month, we're featuring Forever Young Treehouses at http://www.kaboom.org/accessibility. This organization designs innovative treehouses accessible to all children (and grownups!). Communities far and wide are clamoring to build these treehouses in their parks and campgrounds.
Click here to read more about Forever Young's amazing treehouses.
And, share stories about other unique playspaces in this forum too.
These are amazing! I would have loved to have a treehouse like this when i was a kid.
When i was in 5th grade, a friend of mine, his older brother tried to build a treehouse in the woods near our house. It did not work out as well, and it turned into a fort-like area...but i was a ton of fun none the less.
Has anyone here helped to build one of these treehouses or one similar?
Playgrounds are very important, especially now in the United State. Growing up in the 60s and 70s (and still growing up now) we played in our front yards and our parents watched us from the front porch and we saw other community members everyday as they passed to and fro. All the kids in community knew the other kids and parents and we shared each others space. Nowadays, everyone is on a back deck, at soccer practice or somewhere else and we do not have the same interactions. Places are neeed for people to see each other and play, whether it is a playgroud or a treehouse, having shared space is important to learning and to becoming a good citizen.
I worry as a parent that we are not giving our children enough free time to just play, just be a kid, and to self organize and self regulate. While our children now have many advantages that we did not have, they have lost a lot of the fundamental freedoms of play, and the learning that goes into it. I am trying to set up times so that my son can feel like he is free to play as he chooses. When I was little my mother had a loud whistle and we could go anywhere we wanted as long as we came home if we heard the whistle. At the edge of the whistles sound was an old fallen tree that we used our imagination to turn into, the Batcave, Daniel Boones home, a Gas Station, Lassies home and several other places as it suited us. If a parent today used a whistle to watch the kids at age 6 they would probably have the kids taken away from them.
We need to give kids freedom and thats what we are attemping to do with our treehouses, for kids with disabilites and kids without, they need places to let thier imaginations soar and feel "away" from parents, but still very safe!
I know what you mean. I go through the same thought process as I watch my 3-year-old become more independent. I had a lot of freedom to wander and explore my environment when I was growing up. I've got wonderful memories of that time and I want my daughter to experience it to. That's when my fears -- some real, some imagined -- start to surface. Are kids really in more peril now than they were 25 or 30 years ago? Are there really that many more kids abducted or hurt? How am I possibly going to let go and stop hovering "within eyesight" as she grows older?
I wonder if my fears are shared and if that is subtly (or not so subtly) shaping our culture into one where there is structure and supervision for every moment of the day. I wonder if that quietly affects our ability to get playspaces funded and supported by community members.
i want to live in one of these treehouses!! :)
Adults in Sarasota, Florida are also wishing they were kids again, thanks to the Jeff August Memorial Playground. Check out this newest featured inclusive playground at www.kaboom.org/accessibility. While you're there, browse through the other great information on planning an accessible playspace.