Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/conflict-and-play-in-a-childs-world/5024462/
Every summer a dump truck delivers 10 cubic yards of play sand, dumping it in a designated area of our three-acre playground. In August, children delight in climbing the hill of sand, letting their bodies tumble forward, knowing the pile will collapse to catch their fall. Others stretch a tarp over the side of the sand pile, then take a running jump off the top, landing on whatever plastic bucket lids they have secured to their bottoms to optimize gravity’s pull. But by far the most popular two activities are shooting water from a hose into the pile of sand to watch it erode, and making elaborate networks of reservoirs connected by trenches, hose pieces and PVC pipe.
Our playground has only one sand pile and a few hoses. We use a clever system of splitters that transform one hose into three or four, but with 16-24 kids on the playground, there are daily disagreements regarding the purpose of the hoses and who gets to hold them. Children argue over which areas of sand are designated for reservoirs versus tarp slides, which are for blasting holes through the middle of the pile versus precisely redirecting water towards a tiny pipe, ...