Several years after renovating their back play yard, Beacon Hill Nursery School was ready to undertake the updating of their wall-loved but outdated play yard. In addition, the safety mulch had become a home to burrowing rodents and needed to be replaced. The design concept for the yard was to make a space for open-ended learning and play built with elements from nature to contrast with the urban environment. The resulting yard offers young learners many opportunities to exercise and learn about how things work in a cooperative setting.
Since the yard’s size was limited and almost completely surrounded by buildings, vertical play features were incorporated along the surrounding walls. In the previous yard the two ends were not programmed with activities and were underutilized, therefore a priority of the new design was to make use of every square foot of the yard – at the infant end a tee-pee was placed which attracts kids, and on the toddler side, access to the hill slide was via a climbing path along the front fence. In addition, a central sand play area (used by both groups) works as a ‘fence’ between the two sub-yards keeping the infants and toddlers in their respective side.
