Today’s episode, originally broadcast in late 2015, was super fun to record because I got out of my usual studio and hung out at what’s easily the most amazing playground I’ve ever seen. All of the equipment we see on a typical playground – huge climber, big slide, jungle gym – was gone, and in its place were loose pieces. Bricks, cement pavers, wooden siding, bales of hay, an 8 foot long rowboat, tree stumps suitable for sitting on or rolling around, a rain gutter with a hose near the top: these were some of the many things that replaced more typical playground equipment.

It’s not a huge space, and today’s guest, nursery school director and owner Tanya Trainor of Miss Tanya’s Nursery School, knew that typical equipment would no longer work when, in spring of 2014, she found out that the fall zones required around each piece of equipment were expanding. So, Tanya and her staff did an amazing thing: they asked the children, “when we get rid of the climber out on the playground, what should we replace it with?” Their answers created the wonderful results spread out before me.

Listen to this episode to discover:

1) how these playground changes brought about the wonderful improvement in children's behavior while outside

2) the children's contributions to this new outdoor play space, and the difference contributing has made in their feelings of autonomy and collaboration

3) the dramatic drop in frequency of negative behaviors; Tanya reports far fewer incidents of conflict or need for redirection since moving to the new kind of playground

Go to weturnedoutokay.com/167 for key links and to listen – and have a happy Fourth of July!

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