Who is TAC?

Recently it occurred to us that as much as you know about The Adventurous Child’s products and equipment, you may not know a whole lot about us. We’d like to spend today sharing a little bit about ourselves and our company.


Our focus is to provide outdoor playground equipment that meet each state’s Early Learning Standards and to provide children with fun environments that feature environmentally-friendly recycled plastic. Our passion is to help create outdoor classrooms that are learning places, just like the indoors—full of fun, free play and the ability to meet the state’s current Early Learning Standards.

As an outdoor classroom and outdoor play equipment company, our number one core value is to make people happy — our customers, our staff and anyone with whom we come in contact. Secondly, everyone at The Adventurous Child is part of the same team — since 1986 we have been working together to support each other so we can effectively support our customers. Thirdly, we strive for continuous improvement, both of ourselves and our children's outdoor playground equipment designs, products, service and customer relationships.

We are proud and excited to be celebrating our 24th anniversary this year. The customer thank you notes, testimonials and referrals for the last 24 years tell me that our customers are grateful for our values. We hope you enjoy stopping by my blog and by Steph’s blog. Feel free to shoot us a message! We really appreciate receiving feedback, and we’d love to answer any of your questions.

ASSESSMENT IS… INTEGRATIVE (Part 2 of 2)

Until approximately age 6, children are concrete learners rather than abstract learners. Engaging them in their senses – hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching – is the most effective way for them to learn. Young children require tangible methods for really learning phenomena.

For example, weather is a great topic to teach young children. But why not teach it to them outside? By only discussing the phenomena of weather indoors, children are being denied opportunities to truly experience nature’s mercurial ways. Reading a book or watching a movie clip is incomparable to taking them outside during a light rain shower, when they can see the clear drops, feel their wetness, taste the water, smell them, and hear their pitter-patter against the ground.

A multidisciplinary approach to learning is imperative for expanding children’s learning. Why not integrate learning, discovery, delight, and determination with the Weather Station Learning Center?

With the Weather Station Learning Center in your outdoor classroom, kids will:

· Measure water collected in the rain gauge
· Observe the weather vane to note the wind’s direction
· Using the barometer and temperature gauges, discern variation (whether they are reading the numbers or simply observing the change)
· Become capable of documenting weather at the weather weekly panel

ASSESSMENT IS… INTEGRATIVE (Part 1 of 2)

Here at The Adventurous Child, we’ve been on a kick about assessment lately. Check this quote out:

“Assessment is an integrative process…. Learning is personal, active, and genuine; discovery invites mastery and empowerment; delight feeds passion and a quest for more; and determination nurtures confidence and creates a sense that learning is forever” (Hughes & Gullo, 2010, p. 58-90).

By making learning a delightful journey that encourages determination among children, you are giving them a gift for life. A thirst for learning – not just seeking the answer to a question, but the process of seeking it as well – will carry children through school and life.

Since learning contains several components – discovery, delight, and determination – it stands that assessment must be multivariate, as well. How many ways do you currently assess your children? Do you give some methods more weight than others?