By Bethany Parker
You know what happens when your kids open that really big gift that came in an even larger cardboard box, right? How they play with the toy itself for about three minutes and then spend the next two decades making a whole universe out of the box? Take that experience outside, add some shovels, a little dirt, about 40 more children and you have the beginning of the most recent 2015 Pop-Up Play Day!
Hosted by Naomi Sukenik and Anne LeBauer, the Pop-Up Play Day was one event on a larger journey toward a new type of play experience in Champaign-Urbana. And cardboard boxes (really, really big ones) are just the tip of the iceberg.
For three hours on Saturday, April 18, kids of all ages played outside, with a variety of materials you will not find on a typical playground.
I arrived with my 7- and 9-year-old boys at 2 p.m. when the play day started. Never having been part of this type of play with other children, mine were hesitant at first, and even a bit frustrated. They gravitated toward the wooden play structure and tree house, looking for familiar ideas and activities. It didn’t take them long to figure out that the only real rules were safety related.
They could hammer things with rubber mallets; build with cardboard boxes and tubes; paint with the non-toxic powdered temperas; fill buckets with water and haul them around the yard; throw mud at giant wooden pallets; take off their shoes in the mud and crawl through things. And they just disappeared into the slowly growing sea of children.
Some parents arrived with children quite familiar with this style of play, and the adults and their charges settled in quickly, getting right to “work.” Other families took a bit longer to figure out the environment. Stripped of the directed play that a standard playground offers, some children and their parents asked “how does this work?” or “where do we start?” Some children took quite a while to check things out. Eventually though, the piles of cardboard, a tire swing, the mud pit, the hay bales and the cooking zone where anyone could make and cook their own pita bread, won them over.
While my boys were happily playing, I talked with some of the other parents. Hollie, there with her two young daughters, told me she found herself initially following her children around and directing them to specific activities, cautioning them that certain things might not be a good idea, etc. She and her daughters had never participated in this type of play, and weren’t at all sure how to begin. But when she noticed other children off on their own, and parents sitting back watching, she decided to do the same. She was thrilled with the outcome; her girls were confidently creating and playing, asking for her input occasionally and then running off to their next adventure.
Throughout the afternoon, I watched the play shift back and forth across the large backyard of one of the Pop-Up Play Day organizers. One minute some of the kids were working on a large cardboard castle structure, the next they were gathered in the “digging zone,” happily up to their elbows in the mud they had created with buckets of water hauled from the “washing and filling zone” on the other side of the yard. Others were painting hay bales or hammering wooden stakes into the ground.
Left to their own devices, children navigated their own social environment, asking each other for help with heavy objects, creating their own spaces for building and digging and working together cooperatively to solve problems and conflicts. Many adults chose to watch from the sidelines as our children swung rubber mallets at refrigerator pallets and swung from the rope swing. Others accompanied their younger children and helped them navigate through some of the bigger areas.
At 4:30 p.m., Naomi announced that the play day was coming to an end and asked for adult help in cleaning up the heavier items. This natural progression stopped the play and most of the adults still present participated in the most orderly and stress-free example of cooperative work I’ve ever been a part of. When we left, my children were sweaty, muddy and exhausted. We hadn’t been in the car for three minutes when I heard, “Mom? Is there another one of these tomorrow?”
What To Know About Pop-Up Play Day:
• Ages – for all ages! Children under 4 will need adult supervision.
• Clothing – wear play clothes. I cannot stress this enough. Your children will get d-i-r-t-y and you will want to be able to allow that. Bring a towel, and at least a change of socks and shoes.
• Water to drink and a small snack – these kids are going to play hard. Bring something to eat.
• Bring stuff – if you have a shovel, buckets, giant cardboard, an old mattress, PVC pipe, etc., anything that can be used for fun play, bring it! You can, of course, take home the shovels and buckets – the cardboard will probably not survive.
• For the adults – a folding chair so you don’t have to stand the whole time.
• And of course, your sense of adventure! This is adventure play, after all!
For information about upcoming pop-up play and similar events in Champaign-Urbana, check out the Central Illinois Adventure Playground Community Facebook page, or contact Anne LeBauer at aneesby@gmail.com and Naomi Sukenik at nomesls@gmail.com