This was a great first visit. We were impressed  with how much the teachers and staff were already doing in terms of giving kids plenty of opportunities for movement and exercise. There’s a wonderful outdoor play area, and a big multi-function room inside where we will likely focus our attention. We got to watch a group of kids 3 year olds play, zooming around on plasmacars (these are terrific self propelled kid vehicles, that can be moved either with legs pushing on the floor or with a back and forth motion of the steering wheel using arms- find them at plasmacar.com)

Julie Guazzo, Nonotuck’s director gave us a tour, and we wandered through the different classrooms- what wonderful light coming through those huge windows!  Julie spoke about the need to find more indoor play opportunities for the older pre-schoolers, and hoped we could add to their “upper body exercise” activities.  The space available is huge, but it has to work for all the different classes…

This brings up one the major challenges we will face in designing equipment for a wide age range; trying to make it interesting for the older pre-schoolers, while not dangerous or unsafe for the younger crowd.

Next week we will start to work on ideas for upcoming group projects- Nonotuck is ready for us !!