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Rooted in Play promotes child-led play (Rooted in Play)<\/p>\nRooted in Play promotes child-led play (Rooted in Play)<\/p>\n
The man who maintains the trailers that Rooted in Play brings to its pop-up play events once suggested to the nonprofit organization\u2019s co-founders, Maggie Willman and Ashli Givens, that they leave the trailer doors unlocked. That way, a thief could look inside and realize there\u2019s nothing worth stealing.<\/p>\n
Instead, the disappointed would-be thief would be gazing upon a collection of old tires, pieces of gutter, empty cardboard boxes, pieces of fence, crates, buckets,\u00a0 balls, dinosaur toys, and such. It\u2019s junk to spark the imagination of children, who are encouraged to play with the items anyway they want.<\/p>\n
Willman and Givens, friends since middle school, each have three children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both just felt frustrated by the lack of opportunities for them to engage in this type of play,\u2019\u2019 Givens says. \u201cWe were feeling a lot of pressure to put them in enrichment activities, and we really just felt like we wanted them to just play.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
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Rooted in Play cofounders Ashli Givens and Maggie Willman (Rooted in Play)<\/p>\n
Launched in 2019, Rooted in Play holds free monthly \u201cpop-up play\u2019\u2019 events at Tampa parks where kids decide how they want to play with the various \u201cloose parts\u201d that Willman and Givens, who call themselves \u201cplayworkers,\u2019\u2019 scatter around for them. Rooted in Play also holds play camps when school is out.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll bring pans and water for making mud pies to the pop-up events and are always seeking donations of adult T-shirts the kids can wear over their clothes for messy activities. They also set up a table for kids to paint pictures.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo planned art,\u2019\u2019 Willman says. \u201cNo, \u2018Let\u2019s make a tree today.\u2019 It\u2019s, \u2018Here are the materials. Enjoy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The nonprofit is funded by the Children\u2019s Board of Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n
The benefits<\/p>\n
Givens, a speech and language pathologist, says documented and researched benefits from this type of play include increased attention, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, developing fine motor skills, communication, collaboration, planning, organization, independence, and other \u201c21st century skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many kids today are registered in structured after-school enrichment programs and never get a chance to join in child-led play, Givens says. And not as many kids go outside and play in their neighborhoods these days. Givens believes that\u2019s because more parents are concerned about their children\u2019s safety, and fewer people know their neighbors anymore. So the neighbors may not be keeping an eye on their children. Willman says it\u2019s gotten to the point that a neighbor might call the authorities to report, \u201can 8-year-old walking a dog alone.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The effort to bring back free play for children is a worldwide movement, they say. Willman, a photographer, discovered that when she attended a conference in Houston dedicated to adventure playgrounds. Shooting pictures of the conference for the organizers, she met playworkers from across the U.S. and from countries like Tasmania and Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first night of that conference, I emailed Ashli from my hotel room, \u2018Oh, I think I know what we need to do with our lives,\u2019\u201d Willman says.<\/p>\n
When she asked about starting an organization in Tampa offering free play events, the advice she received was build a community of people who are on board with free play.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how the pop-up adventure playgrounds started. The first was on Earth Day 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were so nervous,\u201d Willman says. \u201cWe invited a small number of people, and half an hour into it, we looked at each other and said, \u2018Oh, this is it. This is it.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Sherre McCarson has been bringing her two younger boys, Braden, 8, and Brian, 6, to the events for a couple of years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey absolutely look forward to going every month,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cThey know that one time that month, they will get to go. They are constantly asking when camp is, when they can go to camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
It looks like so much fun, McCarson says, that she wishes they would put on free-play events for adults.<\/p>\n
At the events, she says she\u2019s seen really creative use of \u201cuseless\u2019\u2019 junk. Kids make ramps and have races, rolling balls down them. They\u2019ll use a tree limb to make a tire swing. McCarson laughs, thinking about how her boys were baffled by an old rotary phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t even know what a rotary phone is, but to them it\u2019s the coolest thing in the world,\u2019\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n
Givens says that recently, a boy made a vehicle out of junk. He took two sets of kayak cart wheels, some leftover fence pieces, and other materials, taped and tied it all together, and it rolled. He gave other kids rides, pushing them around the park.<\/p>\n
Other kids collected the tires, stacked them up, and opened a \u201cbusiness.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThey ran around and sold tires,\u2019\u2019 Willman says.<\/p>\n
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Selling tires at a Rooted in Play pop-up (Rooted in Play)<\/p>\n
She says some parents and kids come to all the events, even scheduling their weekends around them. One boy who came to the first one as a baby is still coming at age 8.\u2019<\/p>\n
Givens says when parents come to a play event and see it firsthand, \u201cit becomes clear to them what we\u2019re all about and what we\u2019re trying to preserve.\u201d They\u2019ll often say that they played like this as kids.<\/p>\n
At the end of the play days, parents fill out a survey \u2013 a requirement of the Children\u2019s Board grant.<\/p>\n
Parents say things like, \u2018I smiled all the way home,\u2019\u201d Willman says. \u201cI saw my kid solve a problem.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The playworkers also give them a bag of \u201cloose parts\u201d that includes a toy dog, little wooden people and animals, and such. It\u2019s a way to encourage the parents to allow the self-directed play to continue at home, Willman says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The play days definitely get an endorsement from Braden and Brian, McCarson attests.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time they leave, they\u2019re wet, dirty, tired, and have had so much fun,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cAnd they can\u2019t wait to go back.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n