Our team had a grand adventure at Halifax Developmental Centre for Early Learning this morning. This early learning centre has a particular expertise in “the delivery of individualized early intervention programs for children with a broad variety of special needs”. Despite a wide variety of challenges and other abilities, the kids there had as much fun with our loose parts as any kids anywhere. 🙂
The play space was a fairly typical school playground with a sand box, a metal climbing structure with slides, and a few other odds and ends. The chain link fence around the outside made for a good way to tie up sheets to make forts, although the largest structure ended up being over top of the climbing structure, so the kids could ‘hide out’ and get some shade.
The two truck tie-down straps that we use to create a place to bounce while holding on (see Photo Gallery) were particularly popular with this group!
One small boy was utterly engrossed in putting various items through a set of tubes that were propped up on a milk crate. It took lots of experimenting for him to figure out what went down the fastest, rolled the farthest when it came out, etc…
The two members of my own team who came with me were delighted to realize that our stuff is as accessible to children with various challenges as it is for ‘regular kids’ (their words). We hope to get back there next year to see if they are developing their own collection!
T K Adventure Play 