Articles

Explorers in Our Own Neighborhood

2009-10-08T23:47:00Z

Yesterday, my son Marco (5), niece Andrea, and I ventured down the San Francisquito creek bed about a mile from our house to Marco’s preschool. I’m sad and excited at the same time to say that it was a wonderful, frontier-like adventure.

I’m sad because we encountered absolutely no one on our hour plus trip down there. In fact, in my many visits to that creek, I’ve hardly ever seen anyone else there. Thus, I feel sad for all the kids who live around here and never get to experience our creek bed as we did.

On the other hand, it was wonderful because the creek bed is so beautiful, …

A Play Day & Parent Seminar in Menlo Park!

2009-09-10T19:56:00Z

226 Yale Rd., Menlo Park, CA
Sunday, September 27
RSVP to Mike Lanza for the Play Day and/or Parent Seminar

Play Day

3pm - 5:30pm

Bring your kids to play with us in our Playborhood! See how we’ve transformed our front and back yards into venues for everyday play. Fun activities include the following:

draw on front yard white board
play with vintage (circa late 1960s) hot wheels track and cars
build huge structures with Slotwood, which is like life-sized Lincoln Logs
play in sandbox
play in fountain (also see this video)
play street hockey
do the following with our huge playhouse:

We’ve Changed Our Minds on Kindergarten Redshirting

2009-08-20T01:28:00Z

My article on kindergarten redshirting (i.e. holding a child back a year before entering kindergarten) this past spring elicited heated comments on both sides of the debate. There, I announced that my wife and I had decided not to redshirt my son Marco, born in July of 2004.

Well, in the past week and a half, we’ve had a change of heart. We scrambled to find a spot in a good “Young 5s” or “Pre-K” program for him, and we found one. We just informed our neighborhood elementary school, Oak Knoll in Menlo Park, that he would not be attending this fall.

So, why did we change our minds?

…

A Happy Hour in the Neighborhood

2009-08-06T20:19:00Z

Seven years ago we moved to our neighborhood and decided that we wanted to know our neighbors.

So, taking matters into our own hands, we launched a regular series of backyard happy hours for our neighbors and friends with the goal of having a casual drop-in/out event in our yard on a regular basis in the summer. Now, seven years later I look back on the impact of this simple event, and it is amazing:

We know all the people on our block, almost everyone on the neighboring block, and the folks on the sides perpendicular to ours. Some of these people we are now very close with.
When we …

Home for Sale in my Playborhood

2009-07-24T22:47:01Z

It’s three houses down and across the street from my infamous front yard and our surrounding Playborhood. 3 BR, 2 BA, $1.6m. for more info on the ‘hood. For info on the house, see for yourself.

The Kindergarten Decisions: Neighborhood Public School or Not?

2009-04-24T23:11:00Z

This fall, my son Marco will start kindergarten at our neighborhood public elementary school, Oak Knoll. So will our next-door neighbor Jonathan. So will the girl who lives behind us, Bailey. So will the kid around the corner, Eli. So will the kid one block away, Spencer. So will my good friend’s kid, Emma, who lives three blocks away.

Marco will ride his bike to school most days along with many of those kids. I fully anticipate that our kids will have a wonderful time playing outside here every day after riding back from school. All the groundwork we’ve laid in making outdoor …

Home Available in Iris Way Playborhood

2009-04-14T21:46:00Z

[Editor’s Note: The author, Wendy Kandasamy, is the listing real estate agent for the property discussed in the article below. She works for Alain Pinel Realtors.]

I lived in a “Playborhood” long before I heard of this word. I live on Iris Way, which is a micro-community within the Green Gables area of Palo Alto. It is more than a beautifully tree-lined street. It really is truly a community! There are seniors, families with children of all ages, and young professional couples who were drawn to this street because of the charming homes, canopy trees, and close to Duveneck …

9 Months Later - Is It a Playborhood Yet?

2009-03-20T07:39:00Z

My family’s lived for nine months now in a home we spent 2-1/2 years searching for. We were determined to live on a block that had great Playborhood potential, and I was pretty sure we’d found it.

So, how’s it going? In brief, my verdict is that we’re right on the verge of becoming a bona-fide Playborhood now. I consider a Playborhood to be a place where children, ideally from more than one family, play outside on their own on a regular basis - i.e. at least a couple days a week.

At least three or four nights a week after dinner, I play with my two boys - Marco (4-1/2) and Nico …

What About the Creek Down the Street?

2009-03-10T00:16:00Z

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we live in a land of wonderful public parks. There are countless web sites and books telling us how to take advantage of them. What’s more, we all know dozens of people who go there every weekend.

Unfortunately, almost all of these are not accessible to us and our kids by foot. In other words, getting there depends on planning and driving.

The picture to the right shows my sons at a beautiful creek scene. You might have a photo like this, too. What’s interesting about this one for me is that it was taken on the bank of San Francisquito Creek, …

South Palo Alto Playborhood Has Eichler for Sale

2009-02-06T22:15:00Z

A street in the Palo Verde neighborhood of South Palo Alto well-known for having lots of kids and outdoor activity has a nice Eichler for sale. The address is 720 Holly Oak. A friend of mine and reader of this blog who has a 3-1/2-year-old boy just bought a home here because of its Playborhood reputation. So far, he’s very happy with his decision to purchase there (He’ll probably respond if you post questions as comments to this post.)

I’ve spent time on Holly Oak myself. I agree that it’s one of the few bonafide Playborhoods we have in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. I can’t say much …

Nice New House on My Block is for Sale

2009-01-21T19:29:00Z

A nice new house is for sale on my block. It’s at 324 Yale Road in Menlo Park, which is eight houses away from mine. Recall that I spent 2-1/2 years looking for this house and chose it because it had great Playborhood potential for children in the preschool years. Later, I wrote about how calm the streets are here and how great Halloween is here (i.e. we have a high “Trick-or-Treater Index). Last, but not least, recall that I’m building an outdoor family room in my front yard, so by spring there should be a very cool neighborhood hangout a few houses away.

I must admit that there are …

Give Your Kids Some Space to Think - They May Outsmart You

2008-12-03T23:43:00Z

My son Marco (4) walked over to the swings at Johnson Park in Palo Alto this past Saturday. He put his hand on one of them and backed off, saying, “It’s wet!” I didn’t say a word. I wanted to see what he would do.

Immediately after that, a mom and her daughter, about the same age as Marco, walked over. The mom saw the same dew on the swings and said, “Oh, no. The swings are wet. I guess you can’t swing today.”

I watched them as they talked about it. The girl was sad. In the meantime, unbeknownst to me, Marco had slipped outside my gaze. A few moments later, he showed up again at …

Nice New Home, Best Palo Alto Playborhood

2008-11-22T01:48:00Z

Ohhh, if only I were still looking for a house… This one is in one of my favorite Palo Alto Playborhood - Fulton Avenue by the creek at the very northern end of Palo Alto. I used to live two blocks away, and I always wished I could buy a house here.

Kids are almost always out playing, and there are virtually no cars passing through there, but it’s a five-minute walk to downtown Palo Alto and three minutes Johnson Park! And, for you heavy commuters out there, it’s three minutes from 101!

If you place a bid on this house after reading this, please let me know. I’ll want to let the …

Playing in the Rain

2008-11-10T08:02:01Z

In the last week since the rain started here, my four-year-old son Marco and I have played in the rain twice. First, on a day when the rains were coming down so hard our street formed enormous puddles, Marco and I put on boots and splashed around. I had forgotten how much fun sloshing around in puddles could be.

Allied Arts Scores High on the Trick-or-Treater Index

2008-11-04T08:54:00Z

In a recent post on Playborhood.com I wrote about the “Trick-or-Treater” index, a measure of a neighborhood’s child-friendliness based on the number of trick-or-treaters visiting a house on Halloween.

Well, my street’s results are in: Yale Road in the Allied Arts neighborhood of Menlo Park scored 200. That’s very good. However, just one block away, our friends and rivals on Princeton Road had a world-class sort of night. One family reported giving out 500 pieces of candy to trick-or-treaters!