351: Do You Really Need a Playscape to Create an Amazing Outdoor Space? With Alisha

In this episode, Kate, Carrie, and guest expert Alisha Kriege dig into the world of outdoor play spaces, and it's such a good one! They tackle the big question: do you really need an expensive playscape? Spoiler: probably not! From repurposing tree stumps to creating "tiny towns" with donated playhouses, they share budget-friendly, creative ideas that work for real programs. Alisha brings her outdoor learning expertise, including how musical instruments support brain development. Whether you're starting from scratch or refreshing an existing space, this episode is packed with practical inspiration!

Learn more and connect with Alisha here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisha-kriege-51bb9a4b/

www.freenotesharmonypark.com

www.northstarschoolsupply.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real-world strategies, honest talk, and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by Center IQ. If you've ever added a child to a classroom, adjusted staffing, or made a quick schedule change, and then spent the next two weeks fixing the ripple effects, you're not alone. Most leaders make decisions and then see what happens. CenterIQ's decision intelligence lets you see what happens before you decide. Start your free trial today at centeriq.io. Now, let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Good morning, and do you want to build a snowman? Oh, wait. No, wrong episode. This is summer. We're not building no snowmen. All right. Do you need a playscape? So today we are so excited to be adjoined. To be to be a joint? To be joined. All right, we're gonna have our friend join us today. And I'm gonna make sure I try to do this right. So Alicia Krieggy. Craigie. There we go. Woohoo! All right. Alicia Craiggy. Uh and Alicia has spent no Alicia. Kriegie. You had it first time. Okay. She has spent over a decade now helping early learning programs create awesome outdoor environments for the children. And so today we are going to talk about whether or not you need a playscape. And sometimes I get really excited by playscapes and outdoor environments because it could be part of your marketing. And Carrie had a program. So Carrie, for those of you who don't know, had four locations. And one of her locations, I don't know if she bought it entirely for the outdoor environment, but it was 100% the reason my kids went there. They had choices. They could have gone to any of the three, and they wanted the one with the pirate ship. And so still to this day, I talk a lot about how this is absolutely part of your marketing. But for some folks, it's also a huge part of your budget. So today we're going to talk about do you need one, how you can have a great space that's on a budget. And Alicia, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you ended up in the industry and maybe where your heart currently lies?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of fell into the industry, to be completely honest. I got really lucky. I started my career at an early childhood catalog company. And from there, um, last year I joined Freenotes Harmony Park, which is an outdoor musical company. And that's really like where my passions and lie. I am really passionate about outdoor education, getting kids outside, having them learn through activity. I was able to do that in my previous role by providing playgrounds and outdoor playscapes and also doing installation of those projects. And then now I get to be on the kind of the fun side of the auxiliary pieces, those add-on pieces to the outdoor, but it helps with brain development because you've got music and memory and communication and all of those really fun skills. And so that is just absolutely amazing. But it's also come with the understanding that budgets are tight, things get more expensive over time. And now we're trying to figure out how do you maximize your space outside and provide a fun, inviting environment. And that's something that's super exciting that I get to like share and talk about all the time.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Yeah, because I when I put in my first placecapes um in the 90s, almost nobody was using unitary surfacing, and nobody was using Astroturf as a fall surface. Astroturf was a thing that they made in Houston to have a sports stadium in a swamp. Like we we did not think of that as being a fall surface. And so putting in a playground wasn't suit didn't have to be super expensive, and I didn't have a whole lot of money, so mine was not super expensive. I dug down uh six inches and then put in uh pea gravel or sand or mulch, depending on the use zone and what we were doing there, and that was what I did, and that's so cost effective compared to pouring concrete and then unitary surfacing on top or stripping uh all the sod off and then putting the foam and then the astroturf. And then on top of it, we want a hundred thousand dollar climbing structure. So we've spent $150,000 to $200,000, and we're getting one piece of equipment. That's a lot of money for one piece of equipment.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

That was definitely out of our budget. So uh space, right? Your space, it probably didn't fit your space. You're gonna spend more to get it into a tiny space.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Well, and not only that, not every age could play on it. And I think that's the one thing that kind of sneaks up on folks is um if you come from one state or you're like, oh, um, we had folks who a, you know, certain um restaurants. Okay, certain restaurants donated, right? They they were redoing their own playscape. So a restaurant might donate the playscape to a child care center. And so the child care center, especially if it's a nonprofit, is all excited by this what appears to be really cool product, but they don't understand what it's gonna cost to to dismantle, to, to, to haul it to the new location, to install it, and then to realize that certain things can only be certain heights and that certain things don't work with certain age groups. And so now you've adjusted your outdoor space to take this play structure, and you still don't have a place now for the infants or for the toddlers, and it only works with your school agers who you only have a couple hours a day and in the summer. So all of a sudden your your time, your energy, what looked to be a gift has now cost you way more money than just putting in a quality outdoor learning space. And Alicia and Carrie, tell me a little bit about some things that would make really good, versatile outdoor spaces that don't require a play structure. Yeah. I mean, I think go ahead. I'll start. I'll start. I'm gonna all talk at one time. Come on, let's do it. Let's go in. Alphabetical order producer.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

We're gonna go in alphabetical order. So Kate's always last. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Um I think what makes a good outdoor space is having choices for the kids and having a sensory experience. As kids' brains are developing, they want to touch and feel and experience the world around them. That also includes falling sometimes, which I know is a hot take. We can get into that later. But it's more of giving them spaces to explore that are inviting and that offer multiple sensory pieces. So having a garden where kids can, you know, get their hands in the dirt and grow things and taste the things that they grow, having a sit-down, relaxing space where they can read or work on writing assignments or math. And then you've got a music component where you're listening and you're feeling vibrations and sound waves. You can have playhouses and trach for that great smoter and dramatic play skills, but it's giving kids options to be able to move around a space and have a new experience every single time they're outside.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

I love that. And Carrie, there's a different term that we use in outdoor spaces than what we use in classrooms.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Yeah. So in classrooms, you call them learning centers, and outside you call them use zones. And you have to have a way for a child to walk out into the space on their first day and go, this is where I run like a crazy person. And this is where I can go do some quiet stuff by myself or with one friend. So that's where having the area for music or for art is a great thing for usually one or two kids at a time. But there has to be room for running. The toddlers and up. The infants don't need a space for running. They just need cozy corners and things to pull up on, right? But as we're going from in uh from toddler on, so many playgrounds that I see built in new build childcare centers. I see people putting in one giant climbing structure, and they've blown their entire budget on that one climbing structure so that it had the rock wall thing, and then it had the stairs, and then an arch climber and a slide. And so they have these four ways to climb and one way to slide, and there's no money left in the budget to put in a trike ride, a place for the kids to ride tricycles or those little cars that the kids like to ride. There's no place to run. There they can't maintain the grass because if you only have one area for the kids to run and it's the grass, that gets torn up because the kids are running on it constantly, because there's no other place to do that. And they know that this is their bodies know that we're outside, we're supposed to be running around like a crazy person. So you you only have one way for them to do that. Then people are like, Well, I tried grass and it just didn't last. And I'm like, Well, that tells me you don't have enough grassy area on your playground. Not that you need to rip it up and put in astro church. Well, you need more grassy area.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

They're all postage stamps, right? Like they're all when you start putting in that great big structure and having the appropriate fall zones and fall surfaces, if you've got a postage stamp size space, it then also doesn't meet the needs of every child in your program. And I think that's kind of where our goal was out of today's conversation. So, Alicia, what are some things or ways to structure that play space that might make more sense if you're starting, not even based on budget, but just let's talk about how long it takes to install one of those huge, because you've also got building permits and stuff like that. You can't just go, I'm gonna put this up. You got probably planning and zoning and child care licensing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, I mean, there's a whole slew of questions to ask. I mean, the first one too is like, are you renting your space or do you own your space? Because there's so many people in the space, too, that like are getting a property that they're renting. It was a pre-existing childcare. It is, they're converting the building. And so you have to start there of like one, like, can you even change anything? So when you talk about permits and questions, like, can you change that like landscape at all? You know, two, then you're inventorying what do you have? What can you use? And then yeah, looking at your space. What's crazy to think is if you have a slide on your playground, you need six feet from that slide to another piece of equipment or to the building or to it or you need a lot of space. And so it's space on the sides, also, and the space on the sides. You need, you know, three to six feet on the sides. So all of a sudden, right there to put in one tiny slide that might be, you know, only five feet long from the stairs to climb up and to go down, you need 11 to 12 feet in a circle all the way around that. That's crazy when you're talking about these places that maybe only have a 30 by 30 outdoor space. And so you want to talk and look at what equipment can be versatile and used next to among and around and to carry what Carrie said about creating these like use zones or learning spaces outside, you are picking items that can, you know, work together and then also build upon each other to create that new learning environment every time that kid comes outside, or you know, every month being able to kind of switch and rotate things. Because again, while a big playground is awesome and kids love it and they love to climb up things and slide down things. If you only have one slide and 20 kids out there, they're gonna get bored, they're gonna get frustrated, and you're using up tons of space that you could do a lot more with for a lot less.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

And and you can have things that are more that are more versatile, that have multiple uses. So one of my low expense um pieces of equipment is tree stumps. So somebody's cutting down a tree, you go over and say, Hey, can you cut all the tree stumps to about I'll give you a little extra money? Make sure all the tree stumps are in one and a half foot increments and or six inch, you know, whatever the increment is for the age group that you are working with. Or a couple get several, because then you could make stumps. And so I then put the tree stumps in where I had a uh, you know, medium fall surface, like it wasn't one for stuff that is six to ten feet tall. And um the kids rolled them, they picked them up, they climbed on them, they pushed them, they did a lot more different things with them than you can with an installed slide. And the kids were able to get that gross motor, and they were getting the the their quadriceps and their glutes working by climbing up and and balancing, and then we're building the cord that they're gonna need for reading and writing by balancing, which you don't have to do on the slide. And I use I I love tree stumps. Tree stumps are one of my favorite things. They were one of my favorite things as a child, also. So this is not new information.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Well, the other universe you you you shared yesterday at a workshop that you and I did uh about even just taking, they could be long limbs, they don't necessarily have to be the tree trunk, but creating those balance beam kind of things, and you can make them a half circle. So it takes a little bit of a a different type of, you can't do it with a chainsaw usually, but you can just take the limb and just put the limb in pea gravel or in sand. So it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Dad could do it with the with the chainsaw. Oh, he's out there taking the whole, taking down whole trees and then sticking them back in the hole. I think you need to make sure you share this episode with your dad. And um so that he knows he gets called out when you're at conferences. But um, and and those things can be free. And in some cases, like I have been paid by uh an arborist to take the tree pieces because they were otherwise going to have to grind them or take them to a dump. And they they were like, wait, you guys can use them? And I'm like, absolutely, I own sandpaper, we're gonna be fine. Um, and it was great. And I've used tires, non-radial tires, bringing those into the playground. That's not just for for dude bros in the park flipping tires. Like you can have you can have kids at your playground flipping tires too. They might be wheelbarrow tires instead of car tires or tractor tires. But again, if it feels good to adults to flip a tire, wouldn't it feel good to a two-year-old to flip a tire?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Oh, yeah, I do two-year-olds have sledgehammers because that's really my favorite. Um so, but I do think that it's really important. You you said a couple of things that I think just I I want to make sure people hear is that you know, you can get the stuff for free. And if you want, you can do the sandpapering. But if you've got school-age kids, you can give them the sandpaper. I mean, let the kids be involved in building the space because then it's their playground. Get the parents involved, get the staff involved, because the more people that buy into the different use zones, the different um things that you install or and or refresh or bring in, because again, you might be listening to this right now and going, but my play area, my outdoor play area is all done. But you know what? If you put on your wish list a great big tree and that you want four tree trunks and three limbs, regardless of where you live in the country, there is somebody in your network that in the next 12 months is either going to lose the tree and the tree is going to decide it doesn't need to be there anymore, they're going to want to take a tree down, or they're going to know somebody who is. And what a great thing to add. Add four stumps in different heights or different weights that they can push or build or stand or climb, or like how much fun is that? And who wouldn't love to build their own little log cabins by actually using tree logs instead of you know the amount of money that we spend on plastic logs? And I'm sure somebody somewhere has a grandpa with a chisel who can actually make those notches and make real life Lincoln logs.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah. And and having building structures outside, um we had a lot of wood on our playgrounds that was former, you know, it was like from the hardware store wood, not just from dead tree wood. Like um, and when our place structures were built, we kept all the scrap wood and cut it to uniform sizes, and that became our outside building blocks. So you can go buy some kiln dried wood at your local hardware store, and you can cut those to six inch and 12-inch lengths, and that becomes the the building blocks for outside. You could do all kinds of amazing things and make sure that it has some of that sensory, different senses. If everything is unitary surfacing or everything is astroterf and plastic, the kids aren't getting a whole lot of feedback. Having some of those musical instruments, having real grass, having some wood, um, having metal, you know. So there's sometimes the musical instruments are plastic, sometimes they're metal, sometimes they're what are some of the other things in y'all's um musical instruments?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

So all of our musical instruments are concert grade quality. So they're all either like HDPE recycled plastic um to like hold them together, where we do all the cable lacing and ties, and then we're using um fiberglass or aluminum bars to make the music. We do have some bells and some drums and some other pieces too, because we all know kids like to make noise and bang on things. But what's really cool is with the concert grade quality, everything's on the pentatonic scale. So kids are actually learning while they're banging on things. And they might not realize it right away, but they'll start to kind of notice tone and what feels good and sounds good, and then they could piece it together with each other. But the nice thing is it doesn't take up a lot of space. So you can really maximize ground and have a lot of different pieces and they're add-ons. That's what we're talking about too, outside of having a full structure is having add an add-on playground, an add-on playscape where you can start with the logs and get them all cut to different sizes and start with the balancing, and then you do a campaign to get a musical instrument. And then it's okay, well, you need a picnic table. So then the next year we do that. And you're constantly building and making evolutions, which also keeps your families engaged and keeps them coming back because there's something new and exciting to look for next year. It also leaves those families that like, oh, my kids, you know, aging out, they're gonna be going to elementary school, going to first grade, moving out of your program, but it makes them excited to come back for after school care, you know, maybe do after school with you guys versus doing it at their school. And it makes them excited to bring their friends and family to help your enrollment continue as those families progress out.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

So you're gonna use the outdoor play space as a marketing tool and as a curriculum piece. I don't believe you.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

It's the most important piece. Fresh air. Come on, let the kids' brains breathe and move around. And they want to be there then, right? They want to get dropped off because yeah, they're gonna learn while they're there and they're gonna, you know, be in and out of a classroom. But when they get to get outside, they're excited. They want to talk to their friends. Yeah, use it as a marketing tool.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

I think one of the things that it really struck me yesterday. So, yesterday, Carrie and I were teaching a course to some administrators. And one of the things that always cracks me up are things like the state licensing requirements because those are minimums. And when people start to push back on, I have to have my kids outside for a whole 90 minutes, like twice for 45. And I'm like, those are the minimums. Like, you know, the kids can be outside the whole time. Like there are, you know, countries like, you know, in Finland, you know, there's no such thing as bad clothing. It's bad clothing choice or bad weather, it's bad clothing choices. Like, I think the kids should get to be outside as much as they possibly can. Carrie did an awesome job in her program where literally they had a rotating staff person where the kids could literally stay outside all day if they needed. There was always a staff person on the pirate ship. And so it made the kids who needed that or wanted that to be out there all day, they could. And so the other thing that I hope people are listening is basically what Alicia's talking about is that you can start to build movable play experiences. You can stack stack the the equipment in the fact that now you own it and it goes with you. Like because when we were talking about before, just because you've installed this massive piece, this massive play structure, you can't take that with you. Even if you own the property, you can't take that with you.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Because it's seated in concrete. And I mean, I guess you could. You could rent the jackhammer, but I don't think that that's a good place.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

It goes back in the same way. It never comes out and goes back in the same way. The amount of playgrounds I've seen people try to salvage over the years, at the end of the day, it's probably not worth it. You increase your value just by, you know, moving locations and selling as is with that structure and starting over. But like to Kate's point, when you buy these auxiliary pieces, they're movable. They're easy to take down, they're easy to take to the next location or your expansion, and they grow with you.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I love that phrase, grow with you. It's also just that I don't know. I just have a lot of fun with thinking outside the box. I know that I will talk about obviously my kids' favorite schools that have these awesome, oversized play structures that allowed for dramatic play, allowed for experiences. But I also one, some of my favorite ones are the ones that are literally built on top of, you know, they they have fenced in part of the existing um parking lot and have made really cool tiny towns. And so, Carrie, what how could somebody make a tiny town? What would be the advantage to tiny town? And then Alicia, tell us some of the pieces that people might want if their kids, if they think a tiny town might be an option for them.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

So I think um, first off, you get from garage sales, your buy nothing group in your neighborhood, whatever, people whose children have outgrown the backyard plastic playhouse or the backyard wooden playhouse. Both of those happen. You get them, you bring them to your school, you if they're plastic, please prime them first. People just decide to paint the plastic, and then they're really surprised when six months later it looks dreadful. There are specific paints that you use to prime plastic to accept paint. So spray it down with that. Um, you might need to sand it and then spray it down, but you're gonna be using a spray can. Um, and then paint it based on the places that the kids in your school go after school. So this is one of those things where you can reach out to your parents and do a little bit of a poll. Where do you guys grab dinner to go? So here in Texas, a lot of people are gonna say Whataburger. Um, other places it might be, you know, Bob Evans, it might be McDonald's, it might be Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeyes, whatever. There are some places where they routinely go grab some food. And then you can have another one that is the grocery store that is nearby your school, and you're painting the building to look like the um restaurant or fast food place, the bigger structure to look like the uh grocery store, have the brand name. Um, you can have uh a post office or some other kind of community, the fire. Oh, no, no, no. What we need is we need the firehouse, and that's where all of the the Tonka truck type of fire trucks live in there so that they can bring them out. We don't need the right-on ones. We can have the ones they push.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

I want the hose. Can the water live in the can the water live in the firehouse? Can we have a hose?

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yeah, I I I'm okay with that. It's up to your school. But again, then we've got some pushing action. So we're getting the dramatic play from being the person working at the restaurant or being the person being served at the restaurant. We've got pushing action from having those little trucks that we get to have. Um hopefully, if you're doing it on a parking lot, you've got a paved surface. So you can paint a parking lot for the tricycles or the little ride-in cars, and then paint a road. Again, there is specific paint for painting on asphalt. Please go buy that. It will last you so much longer. Spend a little bit more money, get the right paint. The amount of frustration people have because they use late household latex and it didn't last. It's not my fault. You didn't put the right chemicals in your paint. Um, so then you're getting a different type of activity from the kids, you know, doing their little friend Flintstone cars or riding the tricycles. And then when you take pictures of the kids, here's the marketing piece that makes Kate's brain very excited. When you're taking pictures of the kids placing their orders at the Whataburger, you can tag your local Whataburger in your social media. And who's not gonna want their kid? If you work at Whataburger, you're now gonna consider maybe this is a school that I want my kid to go to because they can pretend to be me. Um, and that's kind of fun. And so you get the community building, and then I strongly suggest that you use um landscaping timbers to create a raised area that you have sand or pea gravel in so that the kids get that opportunity for digging. Um, and then, you know, sandboxes have been a thing forever. I know that cats and raccoons like to use them. There are things you can do to keep cats and raccoons out of them. But if you are really having a problem, go with pea gravel instead of sand. It's okay. And you can put a climbing structure in that same area so that it's where they climb. So it's got your tree, you know, your parts of trees or your small, you know, your climbing structure that you can move around and the scooping and digging. All right, you gotta give Alicia something to talk about, Carrie. You said, What am I doing in a parking lot? I built this playground. I didn't know this playground. And then I demolished it because we were renting the property, and so I had to have the skin steer, and I got to take that playground apart.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

All right. So, Alicia, what are some what are some really what are things that if you were going to be talking to a director or an owner who's thinking about doing this the first time, where would be some some smart places to spend their money first? And then how could they layer it if they had a certain, this is my budget every year, and get the most out of it for all age groups? Where should they start on actually products they need to buy? We talked a lot about things to get for free out of, you know, marketplace or buy nothing groups, but I got some money, or I'm gonna have my parents give me some money. Where should I spend it and why?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

You want to spend it on pieces that serve more than one purpose. So Carrie was talking about like trikes and the pedal push cars and things like that that you can not only use in like a dramatic place space or this outdoor trike space that you're building, but like where else can you then use them? Okay, so you can have trike races, you can have little competitions, you can have one become an ambulance or a police car if you're building these towns. I think the other thing too is making sure that you've got something that has sensory. So a sandbox, and then you can do digging activities, you can do vocabulary stuff, you can bury cards and things to bring that learning outside. You really want to focus if you've got a limited budget, you need to focus on the things that can be used for multiple purposes. Same thing with like bringing music in. You can now have song and like circle time outside. You can have kids make different compositions of things, you can do color matching depending on what types of instruments you buy with different colored keys. So layering things that have multi-purpose, getting a table outside. And Carrie made great points of like start on your buy nothing group, start where it's for free. But then if you have to go, you also want to look at working with companies that understand you have a budget, you want to stick to that budget, and how do you maximize that budget? So making connections, making conversations, North Star School Supplies is another great spot that is gonna help find equipment for you for your specific space. You also need to look at what is your space because just because something's flashy online and you really want to have this really cool firetruck, firehouse playscape, if it's 20 by 15 that it needs for space, it's probably not the best use of your money. So you want to work with people and you want to find items that are going to fit your space and maximize that and have those multiple purposes.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Awesome. Well, Alicia, thank you so much. We will in the show notes have all of the information to how to get those really cool musical instruments. What she didn't share about the musical instruments is that they actually have portable bases if you want that. So you can take them in and out, and you don't have to worry about whether or not you can take it with you. Yes, you can install those into the concrete, into the ground, but um if you're renting, you might prefer the more mobile option. Um, you we will also have the link to places like North Star School Supply where you can get the trites and some of the other um pieces. And maybe we'll get Carrie to actually give us a couple of brands of paint. Uh, one the paint and primer for the plastic houses, and one um the right paint for asphalt. So um if you don't see it in the show notes, um email us and say, hey, you didn't actually put that in the show notes. And so then we can remember to do that. But with that, hopefully you will share this episode with other folks who need to know. So, new people in the industry, if you hear somebody's building a new playground or not a new playground, a new school. Uh, perhaps maybe you are part of a um faith-based program that wants to have more outside um interactive spaces. Uh, all of this, these are great people who need to listen to this episode. So share the episode. Go onto our website, childcareconversations.com, and subscribe to the newsletter. Oh, Carrie's got us something. Go ahead, Carrie.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

I want you guys to text the show with pictures of your amazing playgrounds. We read every single text that we get, and I would love to see some pictures of your innovative playgrounds because we've been talking about this, but I'd like to see what you guys have done at your school.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

Absolutely. And we will have all of Alicia's contact information as well. So we look forward to seeing y'all, and we will talk to you in a few days.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at KateandKery.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.