New Natural Playground at Schine Preserve
Aspetuck Land Trust has built the area’s first hands-on natural playground at our Leonard Schine Arboretum in Westport! Officially open on June 12th, the playground, designed for children ages 3-7 and built with natural materials found on the preserve, was inspired by a similar playground at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. It comprises approximately 10,000 square feet in a meadow and has areas for fort building, digging, tea-parties, tower-climbing, trail-walking, stick-stacking, nature collages and more! There is even an “elvin village” where younger visitors can play with pine cone “dolls”, honing both their imaginations and their fine motor skills. This is a great place to meet for a play date or to bring the grand children!
All of the play areas have been constructed out of natural materials, primarily red cedar, found natively in the Leonard Schine Preserve, and sticks, logs, saplings, pine cones and acorns collected by a volunteer corps made up of Land Trust members, and of nearby businesses, including DLTC USA, a local tree company owned by Westport resident Jon Sweeney. Thank you to all the volunteers who built this amazing place through which children and parents will explore nature for years to come.
The Aspetuck Land Trust believes that there are numerous benefits derived from outdoor play in a natural setting; fresh air, exercise, and imaginative play to name a few. Board Member, Chris Thomas commented: “Today's children have access to many wonders of technology, ever increasing their awareness of the world they live in. Unfortunately, a downside to the use of technology is a phenomenon that experts are calling the "nature deficit disorder".” According to the Kaiser Family Foundation researchers, Children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years spend an average of 1.5 hours with electronic media on a daily basis, whereas children between the ages of 8 and 18 years spend an average of nearly 6.5 hours a day with electronic media.1 For more information about the importance of nature and the outdoors for children and for children’s nature books, we recommend the following:
- Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
- James Prosek, Bird, Butterfly, Eel
- Jennifer Ward, I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature
- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
  
The Leonard Schine Preserve in Westport is located at Glendinning Place off Rte. 57/Weston Road. If coming from Merritt Pkwy, take exit 42 and go North on Weston Road/Rte 57. Drive until the first set of lights which is where Weston Road meets Lyons Plains Road and Ford Road. Go through this light approx 200 feet and take first left on Glendinning Place, a private road. Drive approx 150 feet and the preserve entrance will be on your right at the wooden guard rails. You will see a preserve sign at the roadside and a kiosk 20 feet in the woods. (See map). If you have any questions, call David at 203-331-1906 or email
1 Rideout, V. and E. Hamel. The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Their Parents. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006.
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