Building a Creative Play Structure: Developing a Plan and Preparing for Workdays.

Guidelines for organizing parents, school staff, and community members for the purpose of building or redesigning a playground are provided in this document. After brief discussions of needs assessment and what to do in the first planning meeting, the paper focuses on the responsibilities and activities associated with three committees: planning, materials and sites, and "workday." The responsibility for designing the playground is assigned to the planning committee. It is recommended that the planning committee construct a three-dimensional model of the playground. The materials and site committee is given responsibility for obtaining needed materials, getting materials to the site, and preparing the site for the workday committee. Finally, the workday committee is assigned responsibility for scheduling work, organizing volunteers, and determining workday responsibilities. A sample playground project timeline is appended. (RH)