<p><br />This year, the first day of school at the Beacon Hill Nursery School was<br />also the first day children could enjoy the newly completed natural<br />playscape in the school’s back yard. The renovation was just as much a<br />philosophical one as it was physical.&nbsp;<br /><br />“We have taken a city playground and brought it back to a piece of land,”<br />said Director Lucinda Ross.&nbsp;<br /><br />The idea comes from a new movement in children’s playgrounds which features<br />natural elements such as butterfly gardens and rolling hills instead of<br />static items such as swings and slides.&nbsp;<br /><br />Ross began researching the idea about three years ago. “After the dust<br />settled from the [building’s] interior renovation, a board member asked me<br />what I wanted to do next,” said Ross. “I said ‘At some point we need to look<br />at the back playground,’ which was getting outdated in its construction and<br />its philosophy.”<br /><br />Ross’s research and reading on the subject focused on the idea that this<br />generation of children doesn’t have the daily one on one with nature that<br />previous generations did. “I grew up in Maine,” said Ross. “While I love<br />watching what city childhoods are, this resonated with me.”<br /><br />The new playspace has a fort made of trees, a water feature that children<br />can move the rocks within to change the current, a slide built into a hill<br />and a huge sandbox. “The maintenance will have more to do with taking care<br />of plants and the earth than tightening bolts,” said Ross.&nbsp;<br /><br />The project was a complete overhaul of the space, starting with tearing down<br />the old structures piece by piece and digging through layers of woodchips<br />and asphalt. In true Beacon Hill fashion, the only access to the site is<br />either through the school or out a three-foot-wide alley between the<br />firehouse and the site. All materials had to come through the alley or be<br />lifted in, said Ross.<br /><br />The site itself was given a lot of attention — it was rodent proofed,<br />drywells were built and the soil was tested. The project was funded through<br />the schools 55th anniversary capital campaign, said Ross, and also made the<br />space ADA compliant.&nbsp;<br /><br />Ross is excited for the interactive, ever-changing play that the new space<br />is sure to invite — even as the water, sand and dirt get mixed in. “It is<br />supposed to be dirty. I hope to see rubber galoshes lined up outside,” said<br />Ross. “This is how early childhood education is supposed to be.”</p>
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<p>Beacon Hill Times, September 16, 2010</p>