We are very excited to be putting on an After School POP UP Adventure Playground to celebrate the final days of the school year! Join us at Laughlin Park (420 Atlas Ave) from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. on Friday June 5! Please pack a change of clothes and a sweater as there may be rain and there will definitely be mud play!
We are looking forward to seeing you all there! 
POP UP on SATURDAY MAY 30th at MARIAN ENGEL CANCELLED.
We apologize friends.
Normally bad weather would not be a good enough reason to stay away but a number of other factors have contributed to this decision.
We will circle back to Councillor Mihevc’s office to look for another date for that park later this summer or in the fall.
Our POP UP season begins this Saturday May 2 as part of the Bloordale BIA MayDay Party! Look for as at the Susan Tabaldi Parkette from 12 noon to 5 pm.
Our website calendar will be refreshed and up-to-date shortly.
Back when this website was created, we optimistically announced a Conference for 2015. Investing months into planning the POP UPs and many more months into raising funds for the PLAYbynature Project, the likelihood of our little organization mounting a conference seemed more and more remote. Then we heard that Tim Gill, U.K. Play Policy expert, was planning a cross-Canada tour and with the generous help of Adam Bienenstock of Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, we booked Tim to speak in Toronto!
Do you have vivid memories of your childhood play? Remembering play days can often evoke a special kind of whole body and mind joy. We would love to hear about them. Your play memories can help us form a data base for learning and re-membering play, bringing it back into our children’s lives, re-learning what makes children feel really alive and happy as well as supporting their physical and mental health and their social learning.
| Feeling inspired? Would you like to contribute to the research on play? Our work benefits from your stories and recollections. We invite you to describe a significant memory of how you played as a child and how you think it has affected you, professionally or personally? |
There is lots in the news these days about children, helicopter parenting, living with teens. Listen to this neurologist and research scientist from Philly, whose children affectionately referred to her as Captain Obvious. (Sorry, if that’s a spoiler)
Here is another spoiler for concerned Moms: continue to inform, repeat (a.k.a. nag), manage (a.k.a. be ridiculously controlling, from their perspective), and require (a.k.a. set unreasonable limits, again from their perspective).
On November 26, Earth Day Canada will be presenting a film screening of Project WILD Thing, followed by a panel discussion. The film is a light-hearted but serious investigation into how children’s experience of the outdoors and the outside world in general has changed. PLAYbynature will be participating in the panel discussion after the film. If you are a young parent, a naturalist, an educator or a wild thing yourself, I think you will find this film interesting.
Recently on a work retreat in the Georgian Bay area, I met a young journalist and filmmaker, name, Nelson Phillips, who spoke eloquently about his summers up in Hope Bay, his gang of friends, their wanderings in the forest and along the shoreline that joined the cottages. When Nelson began describing the freedoms of his childhood, I asked him if he would like to contribute to our “play memory” archive, little knowing that the article was already written and here it is!