The Imagination Playground is coming to Great Bend and will make its public debut during June Jaunt. The portable playground is a set of oversized blocks, lightweight but sturdy enough to build with. They were designed by award-winning architect David Rockwell, who was inspired by watching his own children play.
These cool looking blocks, connectors, curves and angles are intended for unstructured play. Kids will decide for themselves how to use them. This will be going on at the Great Bend Sports Complex, where some structured playing will also take place in the form of a baseball tournament.
The Great Bend Recreation Commission has purchased these blocks because child development experts recommend both types of play – structured and unstructured. GBRC offers hundreds of supervised activities, but the commission is also interested in making self-directed activity available. That’s why GBRC and some of its partners are looking at doing something with the walking trail at Veterans Memorial Park.
GBRC has used our tax dollars wisely over the years, building the Great Bend Activity Center at 2715 18th St. in 2010. There are long-range plans for some kind of playground equipment outside the Center, located at the former site of Morrison Elementary School. But until that happens, the board of directors may have to authorize buying a fence or some other kind of barricade, because people have been driving across that open ground, tearing up the grass that was planted.
Are these careless motorists or immature people with their own ideas of unstructured play? Either way, they need to stop doing it.