By Connie Tabbert
Editor
WESTMEATH — “Come on, let’s get in the car and go somewhere,” yells a young girl, and several students pile inside and on top of the tires.
“See if you can catch me,” yells another student as he begins jumping from stump to stump.
“Ms. Bromley! Ms. Bromley!! Look at me!” shouts another student, as he waves from atop a branch sticking out from the ground.
These were just some of the phrases heard as students played on the natural playground at Westmeath Public School.
The provincial government provided funding to all schools to develop a natural playground, said Anne Bromley, a parent at the school.
“We looked on different web sites to see what a natural playground is,” she said.
Once the organizers found what they were looking for, and received permission from the school board to go ahead with the project, it was time to get to work. Once they began investigating the costs of the materials, they began looking around the community.
“You could buy a log for $500,” Ms. Bromley said. “We thought, after looking at the prices, that we could do it ourselves.”
Rick McDonald allowed the project committee to go through log piles. Ms. Bromley noted “Most of the stumps came out of his junk pile. He donated all the wood.”
Parent Tim Hummel has a degree in outdoor recreation and he created the balance beam area of the playground, which offers the students more challenges, she said.
Local landscaper Jim Harris works a lot with natural landscaping, Ms. Bromley said.
“He came and helped,” she said. “He had a plan, that we didn’t really follow, but it was a start.”
Mr. Harris prepared the soil and Trevor White brought his tractor to help with the grounds work.
“One day, we built the playground with several men from the community coming to help,” she said. Ms. Bromley added, “We didn’t build it right, so we had to rebuild it.”
While the playground looks finished, Ms. Bromley note three large stones have yet to be added, which will be the final touch to the natural playground.
There are tires for students to move around, hide in and create with; stumps they can use to jump from; balance beams; large branches standing upright they can use in whatever fashion they desire, she said.
“There’s just a variety of things for them (children) to play on,” Ms. Bromley said. “We released responsibility to them of what they think they can do safely. Those branches sticking up from the ground? The concept was they would weave in between them. So, what do they do? They climb on them. The rule is, if you can climb up on them, you can afford to climb down on your own.”
The tires had been buried in the ground, but when the playground was rebuilt, the students demonstrated they could use them in different ways before there was opportunity to re-bury them, so they were left free, she added.
“They were rolling them, building things with them, so we just thought, ok, we’ll leave them free and that was okay,” Ms. Bromley said.
“We were going to put the stumps close together to make a path,” she said. “Two little kids were here, and once we set the stumps down, they started jumping from one to the other, so we just left them.”
This is for the children to play on and they do just that, she said.
“When they first started playing in the playground, they would cautiously step from log to log,” Ms. Bromley recalled. “Now they just fly up and over them.
“It’s the same as the branch structure,” she said. “They started climbing up, so that’s what they do.
“All the beams are for balance.
“Things we didn’t think of they created out of it,” Ms. Bromley said.
All the playground equipment is from natural materials, or things easily accessible, such as the tires coming from area farmers. She noted some students can actually hide in the tractor tires and can’t be seen.
“They balance inside,” she said. “They hold themselves against the tire wall and hide from sight. They love hiding in there.”
Much of the funding went to mulch, which is somewhat soft and will keep the children from getting too dirty and keep the grass down, Ms. Bromley said. Boards were put around the playground to contain the mulch, but they too became part of the playground.
Ms. Bromley noted while the playground is on school property, it’s open for community use.
“My niece lives in Toronto and she told me when she comes for a visit, she wants to go play on that playground,” Ms. Bromley said with a laugh.
