Visitors who come to the forest of Pequeños Exploradores often comment on the playground equipment that we have dispersed throughout the forest and on the field. They comment both on the simplicity and the beauty of the equipment and sometimes ask when and how we made the “playground” in the forest. I am always proud to respond that we made the playground with the community of families and teachers of Pequeños Exploradores.
When we began offering classes to a small group of 11 students back in September of 2018, we did not have a field or a tree house or any playground in the forest. The children and families of the first class loved the simplicity of the forest, but sometimes would talk about how it would be nice to have some playground equipment at some point. This is how we came up with the idea to invite all of the families to participate in a day of playground construction in the beginning of October.
Before the day of the event, we collaborated with the parents to come up with a few ideas of simple equipment that we could build in a day. The first priorities were a sandbox, a small castle made of pallets and a mountain of stumps buried in the ground to create stepping stones of different heights. On Saturday, October 7th, we gathered as a community to build the equipment and share a picnic lunch. The day was a huge success. In addition to accomplishing all of our concrete objectives, we had a great time as a community. And the results were also a tremendous success. The kids enjoyed those few simple pieces of playground equipment to the maximum for the rest of 2018 and all of 2019.
In the winter of 2019, we started talking about having another day of playground construction. The kids were enjoying what we had built in 2018 but it was clear that there was still a great deal of potential to build more equipment in the forest. We started brainstorming and came up with several more ideas: a treehouse, a swing, a hanging bridge, a bigger castle for the field. We purchased a few pre-made items such as a swing and climbing handholds, to make a climbing wall on the treehouse and set a date for the event. On Saturday, October 26th, we came together as a community and once again, built all of the equipment that we set out to build.
How do I define success when reflecting upon our days of building playground equipment in the forest? It was not only because we accomplished our concrete goals, although this certainly contributed to the feeling. Those days in October were successful because we spent time together as a community working toward a common goal. When we accomplished our goals, we immediately saw the results: happy children playing on the new playground equipment. On these days spent together working, we got to know each other better through productive work, jokes, sharing delicious food and conversation. These days helped us strengthen our community. Because of COVID, we were not able to build more playground equipment as a community in 2020, but I already have high hopes that we will be able to resume this beautiful tradition in October of this year and continue improving our magical forest together.
