Check out the video on the building of the winning design for our Playable10 International Design Competition at http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/driving-play-home. Many thanks to Landscape Structures for building the winner for us and the City of Atlanta!!
The most rewarding this has been the kids' reactions when I show them the design. They get SO excited that it says "ATL". The littlest ones love that they can play on letters that they are learning in school. The older ones know that the cool older kids call Atlanta "The A.T.L." and so think they are in on something really neat. Have yet to meet a child down here who hasn't been very excited by the design...and after all, that is who we want the design to appeal to!
We did it! Check out the winning Playable10 International Design Competition structure BUILT! http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-dream-almost-realized.
It will be installed in Woodruff Park in the Spring (after they restore the park - it has been occupied by the Occupy Wall Street folks). Thank you Bank of America and Landscape Structures!
Three weeks until we install the playground created by the winning design from our Playable10 International Design Competition. It's going into Atlanta's Woodruff Park which is located right at Five Points in the very heart of downtown near GSU. Just saw a picture of the steel frame being built by the artists at Landscape Structures. Can't believe it. It is going to be incredible!! It is going to blow people away that there is play in downtown! You'll even be able to see it from the new trolley cars. So excited I'm about to bust! Can't show you a picture though. It's a surprise.
Posted a new blog piece on PlayAtlanta.org http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/school-should-be-the-window Hope it resonates!
Our wheelchair-accessible treehouse at Camp Twin Lakes outside of Atlanta is the cover of this year's Directory of the AIA Georgia. I am so proud of our architect Amy Leathers of Lord-Aeck and Sargent.
For more information http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/our-treehouse-is-a-cover-model
I've got an article on play and recess in the January 2011 Atlanta Magazine. Their website is still showing December, so here's the article on my blog: http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/atop-article-on-recess-in
Here's one of my favorite quotes that they cut from the article by Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist Michael Skube (Atlanta Journal-Constitution,1998)): “So we’ll just close the doors on childhood at age 6 and get down to life’s grim business. Life’s about performance, isn’t it, not play?” He was writing about a former Atlanta school superintendent banishing recess from the school day.
It's a beautiful day to be outside playing and trick-or-treating. When the kids are all worn out from the fun and festivities, listen to The Widow's Broom by Chris van Allsburg with them. This is part 2. Both parts have coloring pages I drew that you can download for the kids to color in.
Hope you enjoy!!
It's Halloween weekend and my former-newsman husband has recorded a wonderful bedtime story for the children. It's a great way to unwind after a day of play!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to Chris van Allsburg's The Widow's Broom. This is part one. I'll add part two on Halloween.
Don't worry, parents, I don't think it's too scary, but listen first if you want to make sure. It's just under 5 minutes.
Oh, and I'll be posting a bunch of drawings that I'm doing of the story so you can download them and the kids can color them in. That's one of the ways I like to play: by drawing!
Hope you enjoy it!
How do you like my new ATOP work chair (that's where I work: Atlanta Taskforce on Play)? It's that huge red rubber ball in the picture. The original thought behind it was from my doctor who said it would help me build up my core muscles during all of those hours spent at work. But, I've got to say, I'm thrilled that the only color they had was red. Wouldn't quite be the same if it was gray, would it?
So, now I start every day with a smile. Well, I did anyway, but now even more so. Bet this helps my abs, my back, and my head. And, when I read something I like, I bounce!
Check out these great pictures of kids playing in the streets of Pantin, on the edge of Paris. I doesn't matter what language you speak, kids love to play, and, so, it appears, do grownups.
It's a great day for play in Atlanta as new Mayor Kasim Reed announced the appointment of George Dusenbury, Executive Director of Park Pride, to the position of Commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs for the City of Atlanta! George will join the City after his expected confirmation in June. Dusenbury led Park Pride for six years and helped the 21-year-old organization establish itself as the leading parks-focused nonprofit in Metro Atlanta. Park Pride Director of Operations Allison Barnett will be interim executive director while the search for a new executive director is conducted. Park Pride is the fiscal agent for the Atlanta Taskforce on Play (ATOP).
“While we are clearly disappointed that George is leaving Park Pride, we cannot thank him enough for the work he has done over the past six years. George’s leadership set the tone for our growth, and we certainly look forward to working with him as DPRCA Commissioner. We congratulate Mayor Reed on his excellent choice for this important position,” said Sarah Yates Sutherland, Park Pride board president. “The Board is most grateful to George for building an organization that can thrive through any change, even one as substantial as this.”
During Dusenbury’s tenure Park Pride has made significant impacts on Atlanta’s parks including:
· Increasing the capacity of residents to transform their parks by helping form more than 60 Friends of the Park groups in neighborhoods all over Atlanta.
· Coordinating hundreds of park volunteer days, and more than 15,000 volunteer hours annually.
· Creating 19 Park Master Plans through a community-driven process called “Park Visioning” that has attracted more than $8 million in public and private funding for neighborhood parks.
· Establishing Park Pride’s Community Gardens program, which now has 17 community gardens in City of Atlanta Parks.
Learn more about Park Pride at www.parkpride.org.
There is a new book out called The Evolution of the Childhood: Relationship, Emotion & Mind in which the author argues that play may be the primary means nature has found to develop our brains. Check out the review in The Atlantic.
The United States ranked dead last in a report on an international evaluation of innovation by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. That is a frightening statistic and I believe it has a lot to do with a lack of play. No play = no innovation. This article in The Huffington Post said nothing about play, but to me it screams "Our kids need to play more." How did I learn to build things? By building forts in our backyard. How did I learn to run events? By putting on carnivals in our backyard. How did the kids in our neighborhood learn half of what we learned as kids? By spending our days outside playing, falling down, getting back up, climbing, building, and much more.
The statistics in this piece will only get worse if we don't give our children a chance to play and explore. Play is serious business... and the lack of it is terrifying!
Savannah College of Art and Design released a video today about our totem/treehouse project. http://tinyurl.com/yljbwuw So many wonderfully creative people worked so very hard to make that project happen. Very exciting to see it impact people this way. Two years well spent!
Here are the pictures from the Grand Opening of our Imagination Playground in a Box. It was an amazing day. Check them out. http://playatlanta.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-kind-of-playground
Here are the pictures from this morning's playground unveiling at Bethune. They will appear in tomorrow's Atlanta Journal Constitution. http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/metro/atlanta/bethune-playground-100209/.
Check out this link to the report posted on the Atlanta Public Schools website about this morning's unveiling of the Imagination Playground in a Box at Bethune Elementary School. I had no idea how vibrantly creative kids could be in an instant given the right tools. Here's to the folks at Rockwell Group for designing such an extraordinary "playground." I'll post some video and pictures later. I still can't believe what I saw today.
Here are the pictures in Saturday's Atlanta Journal Constitution http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/metro/atlanta/bethune-playground-100209/
It seems like I'm blogging all over the place these days: the Bethune Elementary School playground build, the exciting Great Atlanta Play Day activities, on www.PlayAtlanta.org, and on my KaBOOM! personal page. But, it makes sense, there's so much play going on in Atlanta. Check out the pictures of our new Imagination Playground in a Box (in the My Photos tab). We're organizing the big unveiling and I'm as excited as the kids are. I'll post those pictures as soon as it happens.
Oh, and here's further confirmation of what we already know: being outdoors improves classroom and behavioral outcomes. Check out this new report from the National Wildlife Federation at http://www.nwf.org/beoutthere/
The report: http://www.nwf.org/beoutthere/docs/TimeOutwithBOTActivities.pdf
Keep playing, y'all!
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