Community Partners in Play for Ultimate Play Day 2023

We can’t wait to play in May!

Make sure you come out to Lower McKinley Park on Sunday, May 7 to experience a full array of interactive activities and playful experiences.

For now, here’s a handful of community partners who are coming out to support Ultimate Play Day 2023:  

• Pittsburgh Toy Lending Library will be joining us with some imaginative play

• Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy will be providing a loose parts, nature play activity

• Sunshine Parties And Play LLC is setting up a play area for younger guests

• Tree Pittsburgh will be present and facilitating a nature walk with tree identification

• Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse will be facilitating Reuse-A-Palooza, an art activity

• Venture Outdoors will be playing Backyard Bass and Kayak Cornhole

• Allegheny County Health Department will be presenting healthy water recipes

There’s still room for a few more activities! If you and your organization are interested in participating as a Playful Vendor with Ultimate Play Day, send an email with your name, organization, and interactive activity idea to playfulpgh@tryingtogether.org before April 30.

If you’d like to be part of Ultimate Play Day as a volunteer, send an email to the aforementioned address, and Adam James will be happy to coordinate with you!

Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative would like to extend an extra large thank you to the members of Beltzhoover Neighborhood Council, Brashear Association, and Knoxville Community Council for welcoming us into their neighborhood and helping us create a memorable Ultimate Play Day 2023.

Highlighting McKinley Park in Pittsburgh

McKinley Park restored entrance. Photo credit: City of Pittsburgh/CitiParks

History

McKinley Park is one of the oldest parks in Pittsburgh. Yet, many Pittsburghers are unaware of its ties to the history of the city or are unsure of the park’s location. In preparation for Ultimate Play Day, Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative wanted to fill you in on all things McKinley Park.

Shelter House with Rotating Band Stand, September 20, 1937 which was demolished on June 22, 1964. Photo credit: City of Pittsburgh/CitiParks

Restoration

After years of inattention, historic stone entryways that once welcomed visitors to McKinley Park were deteriorating. With local government aid and state funding, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy led a project to restore these historic structures.

The 2013 McKinley Park Entrance and Rain Gardens project reconnected the park to its visitors and community, improved accessibility, and preserved  important historic features: a stone wall and steps at the park entrance, which date back to the 1930s.

Amenities

The 79-acre park, which historians say gives one “a euphoric sense of the countryside,” features historic trees, basketball courts, playgrounds, a skate park, a baseball field, a senior center, and wooded hiking trails.

It is also home to a mural called “Home Court Advantage,” inspired by the positive role that the McKinley Park basketball courts have played in residents’ lives.

McKinley Park Today

McKinley Park is truly a historical site and continues to serve as a connector for the Beltzhoover community and its residents.

The park is sectioned into two separate spaces: Upper McKinley and Lower McKinley.

Upper McKinley is located at the intersection of Delmont Avenue and Amesbury Street, and is close to parking and the Activities Center. In this section, you can find basketball courts, hiking trails, and playground equipment, as well as  the Rain Gardens,which is full of flowers and other native plants that local bugs and animals love.

Lower McKinley is located along Bausman Street, just off of Route 51, and will serve as the main location of Ultimate Play Day 2023. This section of the park boasts baseball, tennis, and basketball courts, a running/walking track, playground equipment, and a skate park.

Lower McKinley also has a shelter  available for rent to park visitors.

Learn More

We invite you to listen to the McKinley Park episode of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s “For The Love of Parks” podcast to learn more about the park’s history and community impact. To learn more about future park improvements, visit the Parks Conservancy website.

Also, keep an eye out for the forthcoming McKinley Park historical information being developed by Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative.

Special thanks to Nicole Stevens from Brashear Community Group, Sharlee Ellision of the Knoxville Community Council, Citiparks, and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy for providing history information of this “southern gem” of a park.

Ultimate Play Day

And now you’re all caught up on all things McKinley Park! Be sure to take time to check out the park ahead of Ultimate Play Day.

Special thanks to Nicole Stevens from Brashear Community Group, the Knoxville Community Council, Citiparks, and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy for providing information on this unique park.

If you have any questions about Ultimate Play Day, please email us at playfulpgh@tryingtogether.org.

Save the Date: Ultimate Play Day 2023, May 7 from 1 - 4 p.m.

Welcome our newest Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative Members! - February 2023

Hatch - Member Level: Activist of Play
Hatch is dedicated to fostering children’s creative thinking, confidence, and natural curiosity through open-ended play. The organization has transformed over its history to become a collaborative city-wide initiative aimed at expanding access to joyful, enriching, and playful learning opportunities for children and transformative embedded professional development experiences for educators.

Hatch Partners in Play works alongside educators, students, and community partners to pilot a program aimed at ensuring children’s right to play in Western Pennsylvania and beyond

For more information on Hatch, visit hatchpgh.com.

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Pittsburgh Cultural Trust - Member Level: Promotor of Play
Since 1984, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a non-profit arts organization, has worked to make the Steel City a place where the arts can flourish. The Cultural Trust's efforts focus on the cultural and economic development of the Cultural District, a 14-square-block area of downtown Pittsburgh.

The Cultural Trust strives every day to enrich the city of Pittsburgh’s vibrancy, diversity, and prosperity.

For more information on the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and its programming, visit trustarts.org.

The Relationship Between Learning through Play and Holistic Skills

“Learning through play helps children develop the skills they need to thrive”

Children are naturally curious and come into the world ready to experiment and learn through play. Using play as an effective learning concept not only helps children to adapt the structure of their brains, but also to strengthen the skills children need to continue being engaged, flexible learners for their whole lives.

Research shows that people learn best from experiences that are joyful, that meaningfully connect the play to their lives, actively engaging, allow testing things iteratively, and are socially interactive. These experiences will not always occur at the same time for children, which is why children need variety in the types of play that they experience.

Here are five characteristics of playful learning experiences that help children grow and thrive:

• Joyful - This is all about the joy of discovery. Joyful play sparks the brain’s reward centers, triggering a feel-good chemical called dopamine. Higher dopamine is linked to better memory, attention, creativity, mental flexibility and motivation.

• Meaningful - Playful learning is meaningful when it links new experiences – like seeing a horse in a field – to familiar ones – like the horse in a child’s favorite picture book. Drawing those connections expands childrens’ grasp of the world. And it lights up a number of different areas of the brain: motivation, sense-making, reflection and memory.

• Actively Engaging - When a child is really involved in an activity, they take charge of their learning. Making decisions and pushing away distractions have long-term benefits for what’s called 'executive control' – how we focus, plan, remember instructions and juggle tasks.

• Iterative - Practice makes... creative. When children keep adapting and improving games, skills, ideas and activities, they’re firing up reward and memory networks. In the long term, that’s linked to flexible, innovative thinking. 

• Socially Interactive - Playing with others is often more fun – and it builds healthy relationships. That’s crucial for better mental health, as well as teaching empathy and preparing the brain to deal with stresses and challenges throughout children’s lives.

Play also helps to unlock certain holistic skills from children that benefit them throughout their lives. Through play, children flex and find their way. Instead of noting down rigid facts and figures, they hone ways of thinking, creating, working together and testing ideas.

Here are the five super skills that are developed when children learn through play:

• Physical Skills - Physical play releases endorphins, which makes physical play great mood-boosters no matter the age of the person. Physical play is more than just rough and tumble. Balancing blocks, planting flowers, or building models are all physical games that build fine motor skills.

• Social Skills - When children work together to solve problems, they learn to think through ideas, listen to others, and even negotiate. Playing together builds empathy by helping children think about their teammates. Being able to collaborate will help them do better at school and work, build friends for life, and connect with their caregivers and families.

• Emotional Skills - Play is also practice for dealing with unpredictable or uncertain emotional moments. Children enjoy fun and cheers with play, but also can face frustration when things do not go their way. Practicing how to manage emotions level-headed in a crisis is an essential skill that carries immense social-emotional benefits as children grow.

• Cognitive Skills - When learning is playful, children get immersed in creating strategies and solving problems. The joy of play gives them the incentive to develop complex reasoning skills, memory, and concentration. Since children never know what the future holds, all that flexible thinking will help them adapt to whatever new careers and life challenges the adult world has to offer them.

• Creative Skills - Creativity is how children tell the world about themselves through writing, storytelling, performing, artwork, and…how they draw connections, make sense of abstract ideas, and test things out. Creative play puts children in charge of exploring ideas, relationships, spaces and problems. Creative play also sparks confidence, as they learn to trust their natural curiosity.

To learn more about developing children’s learning through play and the science behind it, visit The Lego Foundation Learning Through Play website.

Playful Events Around Pittsburgh

Here are more local, playful events, activities, and programming happening throughout the Pittsburgh area.

Saturday Crafternoons at Assemble, (for learners 5-11 years old)

• Saturday, 01/28 | 1 - 3 p.m.

• Saturday, 02/04 | 1 - 3 p.m.

• Saturday, 02/11 | 1 - 3 p.m.

• Saturday, 02/18 | 1 - 3 p.m.

Silly Science Two Day Camp, Monday, 01/30 - Tuesday, 01/31 | 4 p.m. (Assemble)

Table Top Tuesday: Board Games, Every Tuesday | 12 - 2 p.m. (Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center)

• Tuesday, 01/31

• Tuesday, 02/07

• Tuesday, 02/14

• Tuesday, 02/21

• Tuesday, 02/28

Frick Environmental Center Outdoor Sensory Classroom Public Meeting

• Virtual Meeting, Tuesday, 01/24 | 12 - 1 p.m.

• In-person Public Meeting, Thursday, 01/26 | 6 - 7:30 p.m.

• In-person Public Meeting, Saturday, 01/28 | 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Fun with Fabric and Image Transfers!, Saturday, 02/11 | 3 - 5 p.m. (Trust Arts Education Center)

Seedlings: Winter Wonderland, Wednesdays (Pittsburgh Botanical Garden)

• Wednesday, 01/25 | 1 - 2:15 p.m.

• Wednesday, 02/01 | 1 - 2:15 p.m.

• Wednesday, 02/08 | 1 - 2:15 p.m.

• Wednesday, 02/15 | 1 - 2:15 p.m.

• Wednesday, 02/22 | 1 - 2:15 p.m.

Early Childhood Mornings, Wednesday, 02/01 | 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. (The National Aviary)

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh "Playdate at the Library" Events, Various dates, times, and locations.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh "Meet & Play" Events, Various dates, times, and locations.

International LEGO Day, Saturday, 01/28 | 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. (Ross Park Mall)

Art as Self Care and Resistance with Juliandra Jones, Wednesday, 02/15 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. (CLP - Homewood)

Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse presents Sculpture Art, Saturday, 02/04 | 2 - 4 p.m.

Attack Theatre presents Dance Workshop, Tuesday, 02/21 | 4 - 5 p.m. (CLP - Homewood)

Isaac Bower Studio presents: Cojiform Interactive Sculpture Workshop, Saturday, 01/28 | 1 - 2 p.m. (CLP - Homewood)

EveryBody Outdoors: North Side Art Hike, Saturday, 02/18 | 1 - 3 p.m. (Randyland, 1501 Arch Street, Pittsburgh)

Young Adult: South Side Coffee Hike, Sunday, 02/26 | 9 - 11 a.m. (Southside Works)

Open Studio at the SLB Radio's Youth Media Center

• 2023 Schedule

  • Mondays - Thursdays | 3 - 7 p.m.

  • Saturdays | 1 - 5 p.m.

Welcome our newest Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative members! - January 2023

Grounded Strategies - Member Level: Affiliate of Play
Grounded’s mission is to improve the social, economic, and environmental health of distressed and transitional communities by building capacity to reclaim vacant and underutilized land.

Grounded uses the process of reclaiming vacant and underutilized land as a platform for engagement, education, and building trust among communities.

For more information on Grounded, visit groundedpgh.org.

Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh - Member Level: Activist of Play
The mission of Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is to provide innovative and inclusive museum experiences that inspire kindness, joy, creativity and curiosity for all learners. Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh forges connections with artists, community partners and neighbors to work on behalf of children, youth and families, with a vision of transforming education.

For more information, visit pittsburghkids.org.

Sunshine Parties and Play LLC - Member Level: Promotor of Play
Sunshine Parties and Play is a full service decorating and gated soft playground company. Sunshine Parties and Play’s sensory soft play areas are fun environments that encourage interaction, exploration and creativity while also providing parents and caregivers a safe space to allow young children to play and be free.

To learn more about Sunshine Parties and Play, visit sunshine-parties-and-play.square.site.

Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse - Member Level: Promoter of Play
Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse is a non-profit that inspires creativity, conservation, and community engagement through reuse. Creative Reuse operates a non-traditional art supply shop located at the intersection of Wilkinsburg, Homewood, and Point Breeze, where people can donate used art and craft supplies, as well as shop for these unique items all in the same location.

Creative Reuse offers an array of creative programming that provides engaging experiences through hands-on making and virtual learning. Whether it's a birthday party, a classroom project, or a community event, each program can be customized to fit your vision.

For more information about Creative Reuse, visit pccr.org.