Playscape

Playscape overview

Playscape is:

• A facilitated play-date for children under five and their grown-ups
• An indoor park-like space with a wide variety of play stations where adults can interact with the children in their care
• An informal gathering where caregivers can make connections, share experiences, learn from each other, and offer support
• An environment that promotes healthy socialization of young children and their families
• Fun!

 Playscape in depth

Created in 2009, Playscape is a birth-to-kindergarten program based on the highly successful “play and learn” model. At Playscape, children and their caregivers play alongside each other and engage in educational activities and exercises that stimulate healthy development and create opportunities for growth and discovery. Easily accessible in the former South Whidbey Primary School building, the Playscape room is divided into five distinct areas:

• In the baby corner, caregivers find toys, games, and educational components that promote tactile, visual, and auditory stimulation for infants.
• In the gross motor area, children can freely climb, jump, crawl, run, and slide on an indoor jungle gyms.
• The serendipity area provides an opportunity for creative thinking and artistic expression, encouraging participants to use art supplies such as paints, paper, coloring utensils, and play dough to explore their creativity and develop their fine motor skills.
• The dress-up corner allows children to role play as different people, animals, popular characters, and anything else they can imagine.
• The main area is used for large group exercises, such as story time, movement, and for play with large toys, such as climbers, toy cars, and trains.

Through these and other activities, Playscape offers stimulating materials and inviting spaces that encourage children to build, create, pretend, and use their own ideas to support their emerging sense of self. This unique approach has proven extremely successful; hundreds of children, parents and caregivers have enjoyed Playscape since it began.

As Playscape continues to grow and expand within the community, one of the most exciting aspects is its emergence as an invaluable social resource for parents and caregivers, giving them the chance to connect, network, share ideas, and build supportive relationships with their peers.

Mully Mullally

Playscape facilitator Mully Mullally has more than 40 years of experience as an early childhood and parent educator. She founded the South Whidbey Children’s Center in 1980, and has been a parent educator for the South Whidbey Parent Co-operative Pre-School off and on since 1989.

Mully believes that parents are their children’s first teachers, and that all children deserve a happy childhood. Toward that end, she is committed to providing an enriched, nurturing environment for the children and caregivers who come to Playscape. “Raising healthy humans is the most difficult job on the planet,” says Mully. “So let’s join together to help and support one another.”