ChildCare Conversations with Kate and Carrie
Kate and Carrie have over 62 years in the childcare business industry and bring that background to their conversations. Having worked with over 5000 childcare programs across the country in the last 30 years together they are a fun and powerful team - ready to help you tackle your problems with practical solutions.
ChildCare Conversations with Kate and Carrie
248: Creating Safe and Engaging Playgrounds with Alisha Kriege
In this episode, Kate and Carrie chat with Alisha about the vital role playgrounds play in childcare settings. They dive into the benefits of investing in high-quality playground equipment versus DIY options, emphasizing safety, longevity, and return on investment.
Alisha shares tips on evaluating equipment, the importance of maintenance, and how playgrounds can enhance a childcare program's marketing strategy. The conversation wraps up with insights on creating cohesive environments that align with educational philosophies. This episode is a treasure trove of practical advice for childcare providers!
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Marie 00:00:01 Welcome to child care conversations with Kate and Carrie.
Kate 00:00:06 Okay, so today it's really playground time. Yeah. We're going to talk about playgrounds. Okay, okay.
Carrie 00:00:12 So I got my sneakers on. I'm ready to go. Let's go to the playground.
Kate 00:00:16 I want to slide. Can I have some sunshine? Go on a swing. I love the swings are my favorite. Okay, so we have brought Alicia on with play With a purpose, and we are going to talk about playgrounds. And before we get started into this interview, I just want to make sure you guys really understand the importance of a playground. Believe it or not, this can be and should be part of your marketing plan. Because if kids are driving by and they're like going, I want to play on that. You know what? Those parents are going to unfortunately have to listen, especially if you're a program they drive by regularly. Okay, Kari, let's talk real playground stuff. I know you had some real questions for Alicia about quality versus quantity.
Kate 00:01:05 Ask your questions.
Carrie 00:01:07 Okay, so why should somebody, a director or an owner make a decision to buy a several thousand dollars piece of playground equipment, as opposed to downloading a plan off the internet and building it with a pallet with pallet scraps?
Alisha 00:01:26 So part of that is just longevity and the investment that you're going to put in to your playground. Think about your house. You're not going to go buy a cookie cutter house that has been just put together by two by four as you're going in and you're looking at what's the foundation? Is it done right? Is there a plan? Same thing with your playground. You want something that's quality and built to last all of the playgrounds on the industry. If you're going to go to a company to purchase them, versus pallets are going to be made with metal, they're going to be powder coated, they're going to be built to withstand different winds and weather environments, and it's going to be something that you're going to have for 10 to 15, even 20 years.
Alisha 00:02:03 So you're not replacing something every single year. So your dollar investment over 10 to 15 years is much better spent than just 1 to 2.
Kate 00:02:12 So you're talking return on investment.
Alisha 00:02:15 100% return on investment. And think about it. Your kids are only there for five years. You're trying to get the best ROI on your kids when they come through your program. You want to do the same thing with your equipment. You want to get that ROI year in and year out.
Carrie 00:02:27 Okay, so what are some things that people should be looking at to tell whether this is a piece of equipment that is going to last five years or 15? How can they tell?
Alisha 00:02:38 So first you're going to start with your materials. Anything that is made of like a recycled lumber, metal, HDPE plastics, those are a heavy duty product that has been tested to withstand tons of different weather. You can also go the natural wood route. Lots of people like a more natural playground, but you want to go with a high quality wood like acacia or black lotus or cedar, Anything that's just like pine or plywood that you would maybe make your patio furniture out of.
Alisha 00:03:07 That requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep. You got to sand it down every year. You've got to re stain it, reseal it, and that's a lot of time and effort.
Kate 00:03:16 You mean you're supposed to take care of your playgrounds?
Carrie 00:03:19 Well, everybody knows that. But how do you know when I'm supposed to do it? If you. I guess the takeaway is if you do it off of plans, you download it from the internet. They don't tell you this is how often you need to go back in and tighten those screws and bolts. And this is how often you need to condition the wood and all of that kind of stuff so you don't get the maintenance schedule, which is part of it. So I'm going to say from a liability perspective, if you don't have a maintenance schedule for your playground equipment, you are asking for lawsuits to be fired filed against you. I just spent three days at an asset protection workshop. And my brain is hurting because there are all kinds of ways to protect the assets of your business that I had never thought about before.
Carrie 00:04:13 And I've been in this industry for donkey's years. And this whole concept of not knowing how often I have to do which pieces of maintenance on my playground equipment, which is expensive and is where kids do risky play. So it's already an area where we're going to have more exposure. I want our directors to have that checklist. Okay. Every three months I need to do X or Y.
Kate 00:04:40 Okay, wait wait wait wait wait wait. I think this is a great way to pull in Alicia's little secret tagline on her signature. So you are actually a national safety playground inspector or something like that. Tell me about that. And is that something that people who don't buy from your company should consider should be doing? Tell me more about that.
Alisha 00:05:05 Yeah. So a state certified safety playground inspector is someone that can come out to your site and can walk through your playground and can let you know, you know, do you have anything that could be a hindrance or could be a liability, or could cause problems where a kid could maybe get hurt because, like Kerry said, a playground is an area for risky play, and risky play is a good thing for kids.
Alisha 00:05:26 Don't shy away from that. That's a good thing. But we want to make sure that we provide the safest environment for our kids to have that risky play. And so the safety inspector can just kind of come and take a walk around your playground and take a look. And there's safety inspectors all over the country. They're pretty easy to find. You can look it up online. But the other thing too is it just provides a checklist. And that's something to when you work with a national company, like play with the Purpose, where we can provide you a maintenance checklist of how do you walk around your playground. Do you do check for those loose bolts? Do you make sure that a slide isn't going right into your fence, so that a kid has enough space to get off that slide and run around? Because let's face it, on the playground, kids are running around all the time. But it just is that extra level of, you know. Is everything out there safe for my kids to use, or are there things that need to be decommissioned, need to be pulled off the playground need to be replaced? You do that in your interior all the time, right? New school year, new group of kids.
Alisha 00:06:23 We're checking everything if toys or educational supplies have cracks in them or are broken, we're pulling those out and we're putting something new in. We have to do the same thing with our outdoor environments. And so having a safety inspector come through is a great option, or getting at least a checklist from them so that you can do it yourself.
Kate 00:06:41 Well, so I have a question for those who are listening, would you be willing to share a checklist with us and we can put a link to it in the show notes, as well as in our private Facebook group?
Alisha 00:06:53 Yeah, absolutely. I can get you a checklist. No problem.
Kate 00:06:56 We will do.
Carrie 00:06:57 That if you want that checklist. There is going to be a link in the description of this episode that'll take you to that. or you can email us, Kate and Carrie at Childcare conversations.com. Okay. We will get it to you. Okie dokie. I want to get back to that whole marketing piece. One of the things we talk to people a lot about is making sure that your environment matches the name of your program and your educational philosophy.
Carrie 00:07:27 So if your program is called Mimi and Papa's Nursery School, you're going to want different equipment than if you are. I'm going to use a national chain, the learning experience. Right. They should have different equipment. Nini and Papa. If everything was $20,000 pieces of outdoor play equipment, it's going to feel weird. And if inside everything was sleek and modern, etc., that would feel weird and vice versa. Right? If everything was cozy and comfy and your name was the learning experience, it's going to feel weird.
Kate 00:08:05 So if you were a pirate program, you'd want to ship?
Alisha 00:08:09 Yes.
Kate 00:08:09 Absolutely. Absolutely.
Alisha 00:08:10 Absolutely.
Carrie 00:08:12 So. So at play with a purpose. Do you have just one style, or do you have ones that can fit different types of educational philosophies in your equipment?
Alisha 00:08:22 That's what's great is we have a little bit of everything and we can do custom. So to Kate's point, if you have a school that is pirate themed and you want a pirate playground, we can do that.
Alisha 00:08:32 We have suppliers and manufacturers that we work with all the time. But to your point, it's super important to fit your marketing. So if you have a few different centers and you have a color scheme that is like throughout your building, you want your playground to match that. So you want to have different play panels or slide colors that match that. If you are doing more of a montessori or Reggio learning environment, you should be using more natural elements out on your playground. And so then again, you're looking for that high quality wood. We're not going with the pine. We're going with the cedar. We're going with the acacia or the black lotus wood to really bring and incorporate that feel, and then you get to market to your parents. Here's what the inside of our center looks like. And here's the cohesive outside, which is just a continuation of your classrooms. It's super important. Your playground is just as important as your classrooms because it's a continuation and extra learning space for them.
Kate 00:09:23 And really.
Carrie 00:09:24 Okay, so you're saying I don't just have to take the bright yellow slide that comes with, you know, I saw the picture. It has a bright yellow slide. I can have a slide that's not bright yellow.
Alisha 00:09:35 Absolutely. The thing you have to consider is the time.
Carrie 00:09:38 I don't everybody has the bright yellow slide. How are you keeping this a secret?
Alisha 00:09:44 I mean, it's no secret. It's a time thing though. So that's something else that people have to consider is playgrounds do not get built overnight. So if you've got state lights then coming in in two weeks and you're like, crap, I gotta fix this playground, it's not going to happen. You're going to end up decommissioning your playground for a few weeks. But you've got to think and plan ahead. So you want to plan your playground, your new space. If you're revamping or revisiting. You want at least probably a month to three months to plan that out, to get your budget, to get your equipment pieces, because a custom piece, which again, is 100% doable.
Alisha 00:10:17 But this is the best kept secret. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes 4 to 8 weeks, typically, to get that piece of equipment to you in the colors that you want, in the layout that you want, and so you need that time in that process.
Kate 00:10:30 So I know Michael.
Carrie 00:10:31 Graham that needs this.
Kate 00:10:32 Okay. So like a lot of other components of running and starting a business, you need a plan even for your playground. Love that. So in other words, I shouldn't be just driving by Sam's Club or Costco and seeing whatever they have out front and going, that's what I want.
Alisha 00:10:48 No, I mean, that's great for at home. That's great if you've got five kids. But think about it. I'm going to put that playground in my backyard and I've got two kids at home. Maybe the neighborhood's coming over, but they're not using it. Every day you put it in your center and you've got 30 kids rocking and rolling on that swinging back and forth day in and day out.
Alisha 00:11:06 That playground, you get a year two maybe. And again there's that added maintenance of how am I standing and how am I standing it. Am I reporting concrete because those posts only go 12in into the ground. And again, you've got 30 kids on it 2 or 3 times a day before or after school. It's a lot of use.
Kate 00:11:23 Absolutely. All right.
Carrie 00:11:25 150 kids.
Kate 00:11:26 Right? All right. Carrie. What are some of your last questions that you want to ask Alicia, before we wrap up? Because I think we could probably be on this call, like, for hours, talk in playgrounds because we like a good playground. We love a good slide. We love a good swing. We know there's a lot of benefits. Pick any avenue I love. Outdoor classrooms versus playgrounds. So where do you want to go?
Carrie 00:11:52 I mean, I feel like we know that play with a purpose has more than just playgrounds. And I feel like we've kind of made it all about playgrounds, because that's where our heads are today.
Carrie 00:12:03 so I don't want people to think that that's the only thing that play with a purpose has. But I want us to just sort of like, again, that whole differentiation when somebody is making a decision, whether they're buying new tables or they're buying new playground equipment, what are some things that you that people should be like going through a checklist in their head to decide, am I going to do it through Ikea, through rummage sales, through your company, or through the other 6 or 7 companies that they're probably getting catalogs for? Like, what is the checklist to evaluate? Where is the right source?
Alisha 00:12:43 Yeah. So I would say you first want it you first looking at price. Right. Like that's where everyone starts. We all have budgets we're working with. So you're going to look at price. And then once you kind of narrow down maybe your top three you've got this lower expensive thing, you've got this really expensive thing and you're looking at it. You then want to look at the features that it has.
Alisha 00:13:00 What are the added things if you're going to get something from Ikea, nine times out of ten, it's not going to be mobile. It's not going to be wheels on it. That's extra. And do you need that? Is it important to be able to wheel things around so you can properly clean your classroom so that you can rearrange year after year, and you can do it by yourself, and you don't need a whole team to do it. The other thing you're going to look at is, is there extra storage features? Is there hidden compartments for things that make it easier to switch and change things out? In early childhood rooms, we always have different themes, and we're constantly introducing new things to kids. And we want our furniture, and we want our equipment to be able to easily change and manipulate with what we're doing. And then also what is the intended purpose of the product. If you're going to Ikea, that's a home furniture store that is not our childcare center, that is not having 250 kids touch and play and grab things out of equipment, sit on a chair.
Alisha 00:13:52 You know, you know your home very well. You're going to have kids of all different shapes and sizes, and they're going to have different needs. You're going to have those kids that rock back and forth in that chair, and all of a sudden it's bending over. If you don't have something made of high quality plastic. So you really need to like you need to look at the price, you want to look at the features and functionality of it and then what's its true intended purpose, and is it being made for a high quality environment? When you look at play with purpose and you look at those other people on the market, we design products. With that in mind, we are designing for a child care center, high traffic areas. And so then you differentiate with the features. And then the last thing I always look at is what's the company's return policy or guarantee. Because things are going to go wrong. There is a manufacturing line. Something might not be quite right. And is the company you're working with going to take care of you on the back end? But the purpose has an unconditional satisfaction guarantee.
Alisha 00:14:46 So something goes wrong. You call us and we're going to replace that product or refund your money. We believe in the quality of our products, and you want to make sure you're working with companies that can stand behind the products that they're putting in the classrooms to take care of the kids that you're serving.
Kate 00:15:00 Well, that's that's an awesome thing that comes back into even Kerry's thing about asset protection. Absolutely love that. So if you are listening, there will be all kinds of links in the show notes to play with a purpose. We might even get some pictures that are going to be over in our Facebook group. So we would love to have you provide some insight on what you might have questions for Alicia for, because we can always ask her questions. Carrie, where do we go from here?
Carrie 00:15:28 Well, we say that we will talk to you next week, but if you learn something from this show, share it with someone else who needs to know what we talked about today. And definitely go into your favorite podcast provider and follow the show or subscribe, depending on what it's called, and leave us a review.
Carrie 00:15:46 And you know, call Alicia out by name. Let everybody know that she's awesome and we will talk to you next week.
Marie 00:15:54 Thank you for listening to Childcare Conversations with Kate and Carrie. Want to learn more? Check out our website at Texas Director. And if you've learned anything today. Leave us a comment below and share the show.
