Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Back to the Berkeley's Adventure Playground

The other day, my son asked if we could go to the Adventure Playground. "You know, the one with the zip line," he reminded me.

The last time we'd been there was just before they were six and now my boys are seven and soon-to-be rising third graders. Prior to that, we'd been there once before, when they were about five. So off we headed this past weekend, happy to have a place to go that felt new again. 

At first glance, this kid-build playground looks like a shanty town that's under perpetual construction. The noise of its young residents filters through the scrap metal sidings, joining the sounds of hammering. Something is happening here.

It's the sound of of kids hard at play. My sons climbed rickety ladders, leaped from boats, and scaled the sides of buildings that would be condemned in the real world. Over at the workbench area, they grabbed hammers, nails and bits of wood and made swords. Then they chased each other through the playground, like children of yesteryear, before the temptation of video games, and before the pressures of standardized testing and competitive sports.

 

 

 

 

 

If you're reading this and thinking of bringing your under 5 child to the Adventure Playground, I advise you to wait. As my kids have grown up, I've learned that there are some things that are better if you wait. Too much, too soon. The Adventure Playground isn't for everyone. Think 1970s playspace. Some might think it's a tad dangerous. You won't find any molded plastic, but you will find errant nails and splintered sidings and unreinforced floors.

 

Wobbly little kids are more likely to get hurt. Wobbly little kids get in the way of big kid rough play. This is no place for strollers. Sure, little kids can enjoy the space (mine did) but really, it's better for all if you wait until they're at least five to really experience this park. Actually age 8 to 10 is probably the ideal age. Besides, kids have to be at least six to use the zip line.

I think they should have an Adventure Playground workshop at the Maker Faire and inspire kids and families to turn vacant lots into a similar space. I don't know how the city of Berkeley (of course, Berkeley) absolves itself from liability in this age of safety first but maybe they can lead the workshop. It would be worth it to bring this type of old-fashioned fun into the lives of modern kids.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, we ended our day with a minor injury. My son scuffed up his elbow crawling through a wooden fort. He shrugged it off and so did we. He'd earned his Adventure Playground merit badge.

The Adventure Playground opens daily starting June 18 (through August 17) and is open weekend now.

 

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

P is for (Dog) Poop!

Apparently, along with learning the letters of the alphabet, kindergartners at our school are learning the important life skill of how to avoid stepping in dog poop.

I know, I know - I have 7-year-old boys - poop is a really funny word. I hear the word 100x a day. BUT it's not funny when it's dog poop and it ends up on your kids' shoes, or in their clothes while they're at school. No, not funny at all.

Our school is an open campus; our city allows for the public to use the school during non-school hours. So they come in droves, to play baseball, to play basketball... and to walk their leashed and unleashed dogs.

Did I mention that dogs are not allowed on campus?

The school's perimeters are fenced, and the smaller kindergarten area in particular is fenced in on all sides, making it a desirable area for dog owners to unleash their dogs.

The kindergarten area turns into a dog run after hours. When the school children return to campus the next day, there's the inevitable squish of a tiny sneaker in a big pile of dog poop. It's in the grass, along the fence and even in the playground.

Over on the soccer fields, dogs also run wild, tails wagging and tongues unfurled as their owners toss them frisbees and balls. I've even seen what looks to be doggie playgroups meeting up on those fields.

My son plays soccer, and as he was running toward me, we both nearly landed in a big mound of dog turd. Lovely.

Some dog owners are responsible, picking up after their dogs with little plastic bags they carry with them; others just pretend they didn't see it. Still, one mom complained that even though a pile of poop had been picked up, there's still the residual poop that gets caked into the crevices of shoes and such.

There a few signs posted along the school entrance gates an image of a dog with a big red slash overlayed: No Dogs. But the signs depicts an image of a particular breed of dog, the doberman. I saw a pit bull strut right past that sign; he can't read, but clearly, the sign only applied to dobermans, right?

Even families of kids who attend our school bring their dogs there to play. I say, improve the No Dogs Allowed signs, circulate some flyers around the neighborhood (these are neighborhood dogs, after all), discuss the issue with the students, direct dog owners to a nearby park, and send out an email blast to the school community. No dogs on campus! Spread the word! Stomp out Poop -- figuratively speaking.

A teacher at school came up with the ingenious idea of what I call the Dog Poop Alert cone.

It probably takes some training to get the kids to stay away from this cone. After all, it's decorated in cute stickers of doggies. I even wanted to get a closer look! So the cone is not home base, or a place to collect cute doggie stickers - it's a warning that a mushy or dry pile of dog turd is either inside it, or just nearby. Stay away!

So dog owners (and I was once one of you), please, please don't take your fur babies to the school to run around, leashed or unleashed, poop pickup bags or not. The poop is nasty and it smells and it comes into the classroom. Please take your dogs to the dog park instead - and do pick up after them. Nobody likes to step in dog poop!

Berkeley's Adventure Playground Breeds Imaginative Play

It's time to head to the adventure playground again. (Too many museum passes, too few weekends.) I have a feeling my boys will want to pretend they are in Neverland, building pirate ships and crocodiles and such.

We haven't been to the Adventure Playground in about a year, so we're due for a visit. The marina breeze alerts your ears to the playground before you see it. It's the clang, clanging of metal hammers on wood. You might imagine hundreds of little elves busy in a workshop, fabricating toys out of wood. In reality, you will find dozens of school age (for them most part) children getting dusty in a playground they've build themselves.

These kids are working alongside adults to build things using real hammers, nails, clamps and every size piece of wood imaginable . They've built climbing structures, forts, bridges, slides, benches, walkways, sculptures and well, you name it. There's even a zip line! Venture onto the playground as you dare. I know I had some trepidation that the kid-built structure I was on might not support my weight and send me plunging to the ground as if through a trap door. And there were trap doors, with hinges and ladders leading to secret places! Truth be told, it looks like a shanty town.

Beyond the Plastic Slide

Yesterday, we tried to check out the new Peekadoodle Kidsclub which is tucked away in Ghirardelli Square, but they were closed to the public, only hosting birthday parties on Sundays. So we saved oodles of money and sought out the always fun and always free Koret Children's Quarter (formerly known as Children's Playground, remodeled in 2007) which is nestled in the Golden Gate park.

We just can't stay away from this place. Every other playground we have visited is just boring by comparison. Mind you, this is exactly the type of park which would have terrified me two years ago when I was still sticking to tiny, enclosed parks. This park is vast and bustling with no gates and no enclosures. But now that my boys are older, they can better handle a playground like this and so can I; it's a playground that meets their energy levels. But because this park is so huge, I don't think I'll ever take my boys here alone. Better to go 1:1 as we did today, one parent per child.

Graduating to a More Challenging Playground

It all started with the junior play slide, a Craigslist find. My then 1-year-old twin boys had already been toddling for two months and I could see our future and it looked like this. Though they were still a little too young to be set loose at the playground, I thought I'd let them practice climbing and sliding in the comfort of our own carpeted living room. But that tiny 2 foot slide seemed to loom over my tiny tots like a giant tower. We hovered over our boys as they played on that slide, fearing the inevitable tumbles.

Around the time my boys turned two-and-a-half, they had long since learned how to slide down that first slide. In fact, they began using that slide for everything but sliding down properly; they climbed backwards up the slide, vied for the highest perch, jumped endlessly off the top and toppled the whole thing over so they could use it as a balance beam of sorts. That's when we we decided to move the slide into the garage for storage.

To the Playground We Go! (List of SV playgrounds/parks)

Original Chalk and Cheese Chronicles blog post.

I have spent a huge amount of time hanging out with my kids at playgrounds, trying to tire them out. In the beginning, it was easy. The main purpose of a trip to the playground was to mingle with other moms in my twins play group. We all had blanket babies back then, so watching them was easy (though we didn't think so at the time). Then, once all the kids became mobile, we headed to enclosed, gated playgrounds. That worked for a while, and will still suffice from time to time, but now my 3-year-old twin boys want more. They want to ROAM. They want to RUN. They want to CLIMB. The 3 foot plastic slides (oh, please!) don't do it anymore. They want a playground with a little bit of an edge.

Do you know of an awesome Silicon Valley area playground, something a little outside the usual? Do share!

Anyhow, here's a partial list (actually, more like notes, with input from my friend Rena) of San Jose area playgrounds that you might want to check out. Whether you have blanket babies, toddlers, or preschoolers, somewhere out there, there's a playground for you.