Week 7: We Received Our Permit!!!!!!

We received our permit and we are now ready to start. This is so very exciting. It is also another moment of immense gratitude. This week we want to tell you about some of the support that we have received along the way.

We are sure that it is true that most of the time when someone tells a story about any kind of construction project it will begin with a statement that sounds something like this: "It took us 10 years to get our permit. The folks at the county were impossible to deal with! There were a thousand mistakes made at the county level along the way and we received no assistance. If only the county could get itself together...."

We are so pleased to say that our experience was NOTHING like that. In fact, some of our greatest supporters along the way have been the town planners and managers, the county commissioners, the mayor, and the ever-so-wonderful planning director, Margaret Hauth. These folks have been there to answer questions, offer suggestions, commiserate when appropriate, and cheer us on the whole way. We have nothing but the most profound gratitude to offer to them for all of their efforts on our behalf. What a blessing to live and work in a county that is so committed to supporting its local business owners!

Glimpse: When we opened this center we made the decision to create the playground that we now have. We stood looking at it the days before we opened feeling very proud and anticipatory as we imagined all of the fun that the children would have. It was a huge surprise to us when the children arrived and the playground failed to really wow them. We quickly learned that the prepared materials were not nearly as important as the open-ended materials. Things like rocks and sand and mulch captured their imaginations and became "Mountains" and "Streams" and “Castles." The materials so carefully chosen and laid out for them became supporting materials for their incredible fantasy play and rarely were used in the manner intended by the manufacturer. It was a sweet failure for us but also an incredible lesson. Over time we have taken more and more of the prepared away and added as much of the open-ended as we can find. The children are happier and their play is so much more creative.

As we now think about the new playgrounds at the Waterstone Campus we are reconsidering our entire approach. First, we are not going to build "Playgrounds." Rather, we are going to install "Gardens." This subtle change causes a completely new vision to emerge. We are going to fill these areas with as many natural materials as we can and then observe the children's use of the materials. In the same way that we have asked the children to lead our curriculum we are going to ask them to create our gardens. We can't wait to see what they come up with.

Example: We thought it would be helpful for you to have a concrete example. See the photos below.

At our current school we acquired an additional garden about two years ago now. We filled it with boulders, and branches, and sticks of bamboo, and egg-shaped rocks. The children, being so very clever, quickly realized that their new garden area is part of a water run-off for the whole garden. Whenever it rains the water creates a natural "River" in the garden. This fascinated the children. They began to use the materials to outline the new waterway. They used the rocks to create the boundaries and the straw to damn it up. This one little area occupied MONTHS of their time as they played with their ideas and became little engineers as they created better and better methods to contain and capture their water. In the end, we asked some of the parents to donate some time to add concrete to the rock in order to create a permanent structure. When that was done they experimented with various ways to bring water to the area and in the end they asked some more parents to build a hand pump for them. Now, on any day, they are able to bring water to their garden, move it as they wish, and contain it when it better suits them. We think that this is the perfect example to share with you as it is exactly what we hope will happen with our new gardens. With the children in charge it has to be wonderful!