FingerParks

"A FingerPark is a place where kids can bring their toys and imagination."

FingerParks are large, painted concrete toy tables. Large and nearly indestructible, they invite sharing and communication. There's a Water Finger Park for bath tub toys and a FingerPark for toy cars and even a Finger Park for finger skateboarders.

In most playgrounds, kids are invited, but not their toys. I'm sure there are good, adult reasons for this: concerns about loss and damage, and maybe worries about theft and envy and things to fight over, and maybe because no playground facility in its right mind wants to have to deal with toy storage and issues of equitable distribution. On the other hand, toys are so much a part of a child's life that excluding toys from public play spaces is, in a very real way, excluding part of the child.

Toys are wonderfully reliable vehicles for imagination and socialization. And as long as kids have toys, FingerParks, where they can play together with each other and each other's toys, give them a much-needed place where they can grow and develop their community.