ELC PLAYGROUND UPGRADE  

For the first few weeks of this term, we in the Kinder community have been eagerly watching the ELC playground be transformed, rejuvenated and extended. On Thursday last week, we were finally able to access the full extent of our new and improved playground.

Thursday morning began with staff devotions at the ELC. Our BHCS staff explored the playground by going down the slide, dancing in the outdoor classroom space, crawling through tunnels, ducking through walk ways, climbing mounds and using the water pump. This was followed by praise points and prayer points. It was an absolute delight to observe our staff enjoying our playground before the day began.

At 9.00am our ELC foyer was bustling with energy and excitement as our four-year-old-kinder students armed with gardening gloves were ready to begin the final touches of the playground - planting the plants. 

Before we began planting with Marcus and Cale; Richard (the playground designer) took us on a tour of the ELC playground starting with our river path which begins at our fern mound. We learnt about how the mound was designed to give our undercover outdoor classroom  a feeling of enclosure, and how it had been planted with ferns from Tasmania that love being in the shade of our ELC gumtree. 

We followed our river as it turned into a creek bed where we walked through a tunnel made from saved trees that fell during a storm. On our sensory path we passed by tyre planters, which are made out of formula one car tyres (which can only be used once) to make raised planters for some of the ferns and other plants to live in, in places where the ground soil wasn’t suitable to support plant life. The sensory path lead us past our swing set (made from saved trees), and our new climbing frames (also made from saved trees), down the hill to our second outdoor classroom which lives on top of our rainwater tank (when it rains, the rain runs off the roof, into the gutters which lead down to the rainwater tank. This provides the water for our hand water pump). 

Our second outdoor classroom is enclosed by wooden timber soldiers which are made from reclaimed timber from pier pylons, and over time vines will grow over an outdoor shade cover that will keep the summer sun out and let the winter sun in. We looked at our new apple green slide that is surrounded by tyre steppers made from the formula one tyres, and filled with crushed tyres. Then we followed the path to our sandpit which is enclosed by a board walk of saved timber that sits next to our mud kitchen that is made from mudrock from Mansfield.

To say that we love our ELC playground is an understatement, and doesn’t express the absolute joy we are having exploring, navigating, traversing, socialising and playing in our fabulous setting.

The ELC Playground Upgrade was supported by the Victorian Government.