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Assets: Playground Page for vital little plan (p.1)
The Dufferin Grove playground has four main features: the adventure playground sand pit, the enclosed wooden playground, the wading pool, and the cob courtyard.
The Adventure Playground Sand Pit
The adventure playground sand pit was installed in 1993 to give older children an area to play. A bed of about 20 feet by 40 feet was dug out in an area shaded by Norway maples. It was lined with gravel, and filled with sand. Logs were placed around as borders. Park friends supplied a dozen short-handled garden spades, along with long straight branches, ropes, and large cloths for tents.
shovels
Children were initially very competitive with turf and supplies. However, more cooperative play unfolded when children began diverting a hose intended for gardeners into the sand pit. When adults realized how eager children were to work together building rivers, dams and bridges, they bought a portable water tap at Lee valley for the children’s use.
water meter
The shovels, wood pieces and water tap remain, and children from toddlers to early teens do “engineering” projects and cool off in the water. Schools visit in warm months. In summers the sand pit is filled with children, as numerous day camps and daycares come to the sand pit alongside children with their families.
The sight of a water tap running for hours causes some to be concerned about water usage, but an analysis comparing water use from the sand pit to the adjoining wading pool found the sand pit used 4160L per day, if it were running ten hours a day, versus the wading pool, based on its current use at being filled and drained twice a day, at 43,590L per day.