Define ​“Playground”

Kids at Leila Day returned to their play space to find a new mound of dirt and a heap of leaves — the first signs of an experiment to reinvent what ​“playground” means.

Four-year-old Tommy (at center in photo above) and his classmates romped with delight upon discovering the new heaps.

The simple mounds of earth and leaves were the beginnings of an effort to replace outdated playground equipment at Leila Day Nurseries, a private, 135-year-old preschool in East Rock.

Instead of upgrading the old jungle gyms with bright new plastic versions outfitted to meet modern safety standards, the child care center is going au naturel. Leila Day has launched an ambitious effort to remake its 2‑and-a-half-acre space to give kids a richer playground experience — one that includes more earthen materials like grass, logs and mud.

The effort raises the questions that are being widely debated: What are playgrounds for? What can kids learn from a pile of dirt? And are modern jungle gyms selling kids short in the interest of safety?

To start the conversation, Leila Day is co-sponsoring a talk Monday night by author and educator David Sobel on why kids need ​“natural play,” and how to design playgrounds to achieve that. The free event takes place at 6 p.m. at Yale’s Kroon Hall at 195 Prospect St.

Director Gladys Deutsch (at right in photo with 3‑year-old Laniyah) explained the effort in a recent tour of the Leila Day’s five playgrounds.

Five playgrounds?

Yes.

The preschool, which runs out of a converted 1910 home at 100 Cold Spring St., takes its playgrounds seriously. Leila Day serves 100 kids from ages 3 to 8. During the day, each of four full-day pre‑K and kindergarten classes has its own area to play. Kids go there for over an hour in the morning, and — as long as it’s light enough out — for another hour in the afternoon.

“We’ve always seen the playground as an extension of the classroom,” Deutsch said.

Founded in 1878, Leila Day is the nation’s second oldest continuously operating child care center, according to Deutsch. The playscapes aren’t as old as the center, she said, but they do need replacing.

Some of the climbers and jungle gyms are 20 years old, she said.

Kids love them, she said, but it’s not clear whether they meet modern state safety standards. Leila Day, which is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, offers 19 of its 44 full-day spots through the state’s school readiness program, which subsidizes families’ tuition. (For those without subsidies, full-day, 10-month preschool tuition is $15,000 per year.)

Whether or not the old climbers fit state regulations, Deutsch said, ​“we’re in a situation where we need to replace equipment.”

She’s seizing the opportunity to ​“really think about our spaces” and how they serve kids. ​“What are they doing when they’re outside? How do we include natural elements” in kids’ play?

Leila Day places a large emphasis on play. It has resisted a nationwide trend towards testing kids earlier and expecting them to attain reading and writing skills on a rigid timeline, Deutsch said. Instead, the child care center runs on the philosophy that if children are allowed to play in a stimulating environment with a thoughtful curriculum, they’ll pick up the academic skills naturally at their own pace.

At Leila Day, Deutsch said, ​“we want kids to love school, to love learning,” and to develop key social and interpersonal skills that can be overlooked amid an increased focus on accountability and tests.

“The outdoor space is a wonderful setting for those to take place,” she said.

The playgrounds already incorporate lots of natural elements, such as this tree root, one of many uncovered by Superstorm Sandy. Instead of asphalt or rubberized cushioning, kids have dirt, trees and mulch.

Deutsch envisions revamping the playgrounds to more natural elements. Leila Day has hired local landscaper and arborist Chris Ozyck to accomplish this goal. Ozyck kicked off the effort with a weekend cleanup day, in which some 20 parents reorganized the playgrounds.

Ozyck and company added a woodsy awning to a playscape for older kids (pictured), and rearranged the younger kids’ areas.

“You’re going to see some changes” outside, pre‑K teacher Shary Barnes warned her 4‑year-olds last Monday before they headed outside.

Outside, they discovered a nice new pile of mulch, topped with a few stepping-stones of logs.

Tommy and his buddies climbed to the top, jumped up, and rolled down the new hill. Then they did it again. And again.

Jayden (at left), Tommy and their pals also explored a pile of oak leaves that Ozyck and the weekend volunteers had assembled.

At first, the kids disagreed about how to play: One kid started spreading the leaves thinly across the ground. Another protested that he was trying to make a nice, fluffy pile. With some adult diplomacy, several kids began to work together to pile up the leaves.

The leaves proved a comfy spot in which to tumble around.

Play got a little wild, but no one got hurt. Deutsch pointed out some lessons kids were learning: ​“It’s fun to jump in the leaves, but when you throw leaves in [your friend’s] mouth and hair, some people don’t like it.”

Also, it’s nice to jump on top of the leaves, but not on your friend’s body.

After they finished stomping around, Gabe picked up a brown oak leaf and showed it to his teacher. He found some round aberrations on the leaf.

“Bird eggs,” he guessed.

The leaf romp illustrated two points, Deutsch said: Recess helps kids learn key social skills — such as how to negotiate and cooperate with other people — that are critical for their future lives. And playing in nature fosters kids’ curiosity.

Traditional jungle gyms are good for building strength, coordination and large motor skills. But it’s the same jungle gym every day. And kids don’t have a hand in shaping how it looks.

By contrast, she noted, ​“they created this pile” of leaves. ​“It’s happening organically.”

“Through their play outside,” she said, kids are ​“learning about having a sense of control over their own environment.”

Unlike a jungle gym, Deutsch added, natural materials change with the weather and the seasons. The pile of dirt Tommy and his friends rolled down will get soft if it rains. It’ll get hard if it’s dry, and maybe even dusty. Playing there, kids will discover cause and effect: Adding water makes mud.

These ideas aren’t new. They’re the basis of ​“Adventure Playgrounds,” unorthodox play spaces where kids can manipulate their environment, often using wood, hammers and nails to do so.

Safety

The Adventure Playground movement, which has roots in Europe in World War II, poses a theory: Playgrounds that are too safe actually sell kids short.

In the U.S., state safety laws outline how much cushioning there needs to be under a playscape, and how high it can be off the ground, according to Marcy Guddemi, director of the Gessel Institute of Child Development not far away on Prospect Hill.

“If you follow them to the letter of the law, you’re going to have a safe playground with less risk,” she said.

She said playgrounds should have some base line of safety to prevent kids from any life-threatening falls. But beyond that, kids could benefit from a little more risk-taking.

“Children need to not be afraid of risk,” said Guddemi, who holds a PhD in early childhood education. ​“Now we’ve got these hovering parents that protect their child in every single moment. They don’t want them to get dirty, or fall down.” But ​“kids need to fail. A huge percentage of learning is trial and error.”

Nature Deficit

A great playground allows kids lots of options on how to play, Guddemi said. She said kids can achieve that through playing in nature. In nature, she added, they can begin to ​“use the scientific process to guess what the inch worm might do, or watch the cocoon” open.

Luckily, Guddemi said, there’s no regulation against inch worms, flowers and trees. ​“There’s no regulations that say you can’t have a mud puddle, you can’t have a pile of sand.”

In her playground of the future, Deutsch envisions creating more natural contours of the ground, and perhaps adding boulders, butterfly gardens, and a vegetable patch.

Guddemi applauded the move.

“Children don’t spend enough time outside,” she said, and ​“they don’t get out in nature.” Children of working parents are typically inside most of the day, or playing in spaces with ​“no trees or shade or plants. At home, parents are afraid to let kids play outside unsupervised.” The phenomenon has been described as ​“nature deficit disorder.” 

Local filmmaker Lisa Molomot examines that deficit in ​“School’s Out: Lessons from a Forest Kindergarten,” which compares an Edgewood School kindergarten to a kindergarten in Switzerland where kids play outdoors all day, all year ​‘round.

Guddemi said New Haven schools are moving in the right direction by mandating 20 minutes of daily recess to all kids in grades K to 6.

Guddemi said she’d like to see many more natural playgrounds around the city, not just in schools, but in public parks.

Deutsch said Leila Day will be launching a fundraising drive to pay for the improvements. When they’re done, she said, she hopes Leila Day can create a model that can be replicated around town.

Meanwhile, kids at Leila Day were still finding plenty in their current playground to be curious about.

Willa (pictured) flagged down a reporter to show off a tiny yellow leaf. She stashed it in her pocket.

A few moments later, she clambered out of an old playscape to show her teacher, Nicole Onofrio, another discovery from the same tree.

Deutsch said the center aims to harness that curiosity into the classroom, in part by incorporated natural materials — such as pumpkins, leaves and apples — into the curriculum. In recent weeks, kids have been studying apples, painting them, and reading books about pumpkins.

The goal is to take play that kids initiate — such as harvesting leaves — and weave it into a lesson that also builds math or observational skills.

“If we can do that,” she said, ​“kids who we’ll be sending to school are kids who are motivated and focused and wanting to learn, and have a satisfaction in learning.”

“What’s happening out there in the mud,” she said, ​“makes a difference for eventual academic achievement.”