Saturday 28 November

Returning to the playground, the 'blackboard wall' was all but covered with drawings and writings. During the morning, more were added to it.

As usual there were various games of football played during the morning. There are attempts to make sure the sides are 'even'. The children know who is a good, or very good player, and they try to balance the sides - if a good player joins in, they always join the team that are losing.

Match of The Day ...

I asked children to show me their favourite place at the playground ...

A girl told me she had two favourite places inside the building, and one outside, so we rode around in a tryke like the one below, along the playground paths. We stopped at various spots, her favourite, was a 'secret spot' where she ate her sweets - despite the rule that sweets can't be eaten in the playground.

Inside, her favourite places was the ball pool where we played Owner and Cat, and the sensory room - where we played Hide The Hat (my hat). Whilst going around the playground, she took it upon herself to personally introduce me to as many members of staff as possible - I had told here that I didn't know everybody yet.

I suggested to Bev, the manager, that I devote an edition of A3 (a black and white poster publication that I produce monthly) to short stories written by the children.

During the morning, I was shown a:

Map of The Land of Charlie Chaplin & The Lava Turtles

Marked on the map were:

Gate To The Other World

The Talking Trees

A Lava Pond

Slopes Of The Boogie Traps

Later, the boy who had made this, tore the map up. It was of no further use, he said, as the map was 'perfect in his head'.

Tuesday 24 November

Whilst painting the wall with black paint, for the children to draw / write on using chalks, the trees to one side of the playground were being felled. A video here of this ...

Later at the team meeting we learnt that the tree trunks were being donated to the playground, and were going to be used as seating.

The wall now finished, I left chalks on a chair.

Returning from a walk around the playground, a boy was drawing on the wall (see video here). He made a circular target, with high and low scores on it, he tried scoring with the football.

Drawing by Ottey, a playworker.

The meal tonight was pasta with tuna, or salmon. One boy said he did not like the taste of it, he also didn't like the sound of it.

I had a few more responses to asking staff to tell me the earliest memory they have of playing.

I remember playing 'Dinosaur World' with my mum. She had bowls of water with food dye and dirt made into mountains and also plastic dinosaurs. I think a mirror was involved, but I can't be sure. It was fun. Ben

Playing in the rock pools at the beach in Cornwall poking sea anemones and watching them retract inside themselves, popping bladderwrack (seaweed), getting pinched on the finger by a crab. Henry

My earliest memory of play is playing 'wink' with my neighbours. Its a form of hide and seek were the person found, needs to stand by a spot and can sneak away when getting a 'wink' from somebody else. Jenny

Had to really think, many years ago, as I'm a mother of four. Approximately aged seven or eight riding my favourite yellow tricycle, snowy and browny teddy bears, best of all - my one and only friend my Golden Retriever dog Rusty, and being with my Nan Xmas times playing Ludo, Monopoly - I enjoyed play. Edwards

First time I remembered living next door to Ronnie Corbett and there were caves there with bats and I played in there a lot, and I loved playing in the rain and getting wet all the time and ended up with pneumonia. I was under five years old at the time. - L.A. Howell

My first memory was getting two lego sets to build a chopper bike. - Troy

Spectacular play structure

DISABLED BOY 'CAN PLAY' was a recent newspaper headline:

A doctor involved in assessing the survival chances of a sick baby boy agreed in court yesterday it was possible he was capable of 'purposeful play and interaction'. But the consultant paediatric neurologist said that, even if Baby RB - who was born with congential myasthenic syndrome - had scope for further development, he would still be in a 'no chance' situation, the High Court heard. His parents are divided over whether he should live or die. the hearing continues.

Saturday 21 November

During the staff meeting before the children arrived, I asked staff to tell me their earliest memory of playing. During the morning, several did this.

Last year the Playground was voted the best playground in London.

There is a 'hair' themed party on the last day before the playground closes for Christmas. Children and staff have to wear 'big' hair - wigs, moustaches, long plaits.

Here is a video of the carcass of a bird, hanging from a tree, it has been there over a year. When I mention this to a playworker, he tells me there used to be two chickens kept on the playground. They were kept in a pen, but free to roam with the children. They were once put into plastic bags and swung around on the lengths of string by some children up on the 'hill'. They were eventually killed by a fox.

I have not met a boy called Ibby before. As I say hello, he stands very close, and strokes my beard, he returns on several occasions to do this again.

A playworker sits on a bench with a child, cutting shapes from a large sheet of silver card.

A small girl tries to grab some blue tac stuck high up on the gate - she loves the feel of it in her hands.

I remember playing with my dad, when he came home from work - he used to work shifts. On fridays he would bring treats home. One day he brought home a kitten for me and my brother. My brother was holding the tabby, and I knew something was wrong, because it wasnt moving. My brother had held it too tightly, and strangled it. We buried it. The next day my dad bought another kitten.

My earliest memory was at school in the UK, climbing frames. Then I moved to Colombia when I was four and a half, where I played with cars, and drawing a track with chalk, playing with marbles at school, football, then cycling by the age of seven. William

Thursday 19 November

Watching children play, I wonder if any are aware that they are playing, or are they oblivious to this, lost in their world of play, their games.

Even in a structured game, like football - which you are aware of playing - you lose yourself in the game.

Does being aware of 'playing' whilst playing, alter the nature of the play ?

Wednesday 18 November

I have started painting over an old mural with blackboard paint. When this is completed I will leave chalks nearby, and see what happens. Hopefully, the children will draw on the wall without being prompted. If not, they will be invited to do so, but not directed as to what they can draw, or write.

At the staff meeting before the children arrive, I talk about this blog, asking everyone to look at it, and to add their comments.

Truck holding swing seats

Toys in pram

Mosaic

A football whizzes past the head of a boy on a swing.

Dead Toy

Here is a video of children and staff dancing - filmed, with special effects added, this was shown on the large indoor screen.

Bev cooks the meal tonight - beans, chips and tomato sauce. Kieron says he did not have tomato sauce with his food, as it brings him out in spots. So he doesn’t like it at all. He tells me he does like pickle, mayonnaise and coleslaw.

Saturday 14 November

Video of Aquarium at Charlie Chaplin, featuring Itchy and Scratchy.

It has rained hard and continually overnight, there are gales across Southern England and Wales. I imagine the playground is by now flooded, and that the various climbing frames and slides, and the wooden train and dolls house are completely underwater, like the toy castles put into fish tanks - the children at Charlie Chaplin now mermaids and mermen, swimming through the submerged playground.

A playworker arrives with two slices of granary bread in a plastic bag to toast for his breakfast.

I mention my thoughts about the underwater playground, a playworker says that would make a wonderful theme for an animated film, made by the children.

A small boy tells a member of staff

“You are the one who had a slug on your face!”

A girl walks out of the building holding a laminated map of the world. She says she is going to put the map in a puddle to drown all the bad people in the world. The good people are much taller than the bad people they also have larger feet) so they wont drown. She looks at the leaves in the puddles, and says they are bad people, and if you touch the leaves you get blood on your hands, because the bad people are vampires.

Having brought a tape measure to find out the dimensions of an area of wall, I measure the heights of the children:

Shooja – 5 feet, 4 inches

Nathan - 5 feet, 2 inches

Ryan – 5 feet, 2 inches

Charlie – 4 feet, 11 inches

Jermain – 4 feet, 8 inches

Tommy – 4 feet, 7 inches

Abubakar – 4 feet, 6 inches

Mohammed – 4 feet, 4 inches

Alex – 4 feet, 3 inches

Leah – 4 feet, 1 inch

Gary (sitting) – 4 feet

Crystal – 3 feet, 10 inches

Daniel – 3 feet, 7 inches

The playground is very damp and very wet, at various times the rain pours down so hard, that the shapes of the blocks of flats to one side of the playground are blurred grey.

When it is raining at its heaviest, various children leave the building to go out in the rain, obviously happy and all smiling broadly.

A boy sits writing a letter to his mum and dad asking them to each tick a box if they want a Christmas present, or another box if they do not want a present. He says he wants a telescope. He didn’t get one last year, so he might get it this year.

My hat (a secondhand one recently bought in Finland) is lifted from my head and smelt by a boy. “It smells like Pizza Hut!”

Wednesday 11 November

Beth is the cook for the meal served later on tonight - staff take turns each night to prepare and cook the meal - tonight its potatoes, corn meat, and beans.

I say I am interested in what play is, to a play worker, she says

“Play Is Charlie Chaplin!”

I find myself almost immediately playing football with several children, gradually the numbers of players increase. The team I am playing for come back from 6 – 0 to 6 – 6, and it looks like we might take the lead, but the game goes to 11 – 8, when the game stops as food is being served. Walking to the kitchen, a boy watches a video game, balancing himself on the back of a chair holding a large 'Where The Wild Things Are' toy.

Another playworker and I talk about children playing, I suggest creativity is adults playing, he says those adults who are creative are probably doing OK. I talk also about an exhibition I am participating in next year focusing on the theme of Play, and for this I will be writing a series of slogans that will be placed inside, and outside the gallery. The slogans will be invitations to perform playful acts i.e. ‘Thrash A Puddle With A Stick’ and I am wondering if the children here might devise the slogans, which I will then produce in a sophisticated handwritten style.

I put out the yellow sticks with my photographs on again, tonight they remain unfound, and I will gather them in before I leave.

The meal is enjoyed by children and staff. One boy lines up for more, and is disappointed when told “it’s all gone.”

I return outside to play football with two brothers. I tell them I will be at the playground on Wednesdays and Saturdays, they ask what I do when I am not there. I say I work with lots of people to make art. They say, “You’re an artist? draw a picture, to convince us you are one !” I reply “Right now, I’m trying to convince you I can play football!”

by now the playground is dark. The lights illuminate the play structures, the playground looks like a stage, or film set.

Saturday 7 November 2009

I distribute photographs of some of my artworks, each on a yellow stick, around the playground. Children find these and bring them to me. They ask what they are about, and then hide them for others to find, though this also involves them running around wildly with the sticks.

“I want my Dad back” a girl says when I tell her about my work I WANT, and I ask her what she wants.

Later, a girl tells me she has put her own drawing on a stick, and asks me to find it. We walk around the playground. I ask her to tell me when I am getting ‘hotter’ or ‘colder’. We eventually end up under a tree where she says it is hidden. I cannot find it. It is buried she said. I give her my notebook and she draws me.

The same girl says she wants to write a poem, and takes my book away:

Sea side

Me side

Wake in the

Mean side

I am asked my name “You look more like a Kevin” says a boy, also called Daniel.

“I’m sad because my friend is not here.”

A boys’ jeans become caught in the chain of the bike to release himself he has to push the bike forward very, very slowly.

Sitting under a tree, my hat gets decorated by several children using leaves. I don’t know how this happened.

During the staff meeting at the beginning of the day, meticulous planning takes place to ensure children do not leave their possessions at the playground at the end of the day. All the free and inventive play that takes place at the playground is underpinned by health and safety, and care by trained professionals.

Football Words

OVER HERE !

WHAT A SAVE !

FOUL !

NO !

YES !

NO !

GOAL !