After years of trying unsuccessfully to get some greenery to grow in the North-East corner of our playground, we called in Canberra-based playground expert carpenter and educator, Aaron from Pallet Play.
Aaron’s background in early childhood education combined with his artistic talent, experience with playground creation and carpentry construction skills were the perfect skill set. Our director and some of the teachers, committee and children all provided input into the design, and the Black Forest Retreat was born.
Aaron was happy for the children to be involved and ask questions while he installed it, which they enjoyed. Once the children could see what the finished product was going to look like, the most common question of course became “Have you finished yet?!”
The new corner space provides a deck, a stage, a hiding retreat area when the curtains are drawn, a cubby, a display area, a house, a horse stall, a colourful forest, a pretty reading corner, and much more.
There is a forest theme inside, and when the sun shines through the leaf-shaped cut-outs, the interior lights up with pretty colours which move around as the sun does. When you dance on the stage, you can have pretty coloured lights on you. When you hide in the cubby, the colourful lights add a fun atmosphere. When you lead your horse into the stable, it becomes a unicorn.
Do the trees look familiar? They echo our indoor tree art made by the Pfadfinder scouts with our artists in residence, Byrd and Hanna, a few years ago.
We can hardly wait to see what Aaron’s magic will do for our Sandkiste sand box.