Oakland high schoolers build playhouse village for elementary school students
Around 50 students at Fremont High build five high quality playhouses for Prescott Elementary School students as part of their senior project
On a sunny Saturday morning on April 19, seven students from the East Oakland based Fremont High, showed up at the West Oakland based Prescott Elementary School, to install and celebrate five large colorful wooden playhouses they and their classmates had designed and built for Prescott students.
The playhouses are emblematic of Oakland’s rich history and include a Black Panther house, and replicas of the Tribune Tower and a BART car.
This installation and celebration was the culmination of three months of collaborative work that about 50 students had done in Fremont High teacher Andrew Prober’s design and build class. At the event, Fremont student Sebastian Lorenzo Mateo said that after installing the playhouses, he was satisfied with the hard work he and his classmates had done.
“It was a long process,” said Mateo. “And this is the proudest moment. I feel proud of my team and everything we did. It was an honor to make these playhouses for the kids.”
Another Fremont student, Alimeida Pablo, said in Spanish that she was proud of the project as well, because she thinks the playhouses will “help children in their personal development.”
Prober said the playhouses were part of an effort that started at the beginning of the school year. The goal was to create more opportunities for young children to play and learn outdoors by improving a yard that the school’s transitional kindergarten through first grade students use. Last fall, Fremont’s students created planter boxes for gardening in the yard and small tables and chairs that are durable for outdoor use and comfortable for young children.
Prober, who’s taught design, building, and wood technology classes at Fremont for over 15 years, said he thinks spending time outdoors is beneficial for students.
“I think being outdoors elicits a different kind of thinking, stimulates creativity, and it’s just healthy too,” Prober said. “I think a lot of adults feel a separation — almost a fear — of being in nature. That early introduction to spending time outside helps people be more comfortable outdoors and appreciate the importance of protecting outdoor spaces.”
The improvements at Prescott are a facet of Fremont students’ senior capstone project, an interdisciplinary project the Oakland Unified School District students must complete in order to graduate. In other classes at Fremont, students learned and wrote about problems, such as food deserts and lack of outdoor play space, that their constructions were trying to help.
Prober and his class brainstormed about the project with Common Vision, a nonprofit that does gardening and outdoor education at Prescott, and Lorraine Mann, a former transitional kindergarten teacher at Prescott who retired in 2020.
Shortly before retiring, Mann decided to transform an area that was formerly only asphalt into a more play-friendly nature yard by laying out mulch and wood chips and putting in plants. She still volunteers regularly at the school and takes young children out to the yard she helped create. Workers at Common Vision suggested creating the playhouses to improve the nature yard, and Mann suggested that the students make the structures feel familiar to students but not be too complicated.
“I asked the students to create structures that suggested elements of the community and that were simple enough that the students could still bring their imagination fully to it,” Mann said. “They did a beautiful job of it. I see all kinds of play happening here.”
Mann plans to bring a table into Tribune Tower playhouse, so kids can imagine being journalists. In addition to Oakland specific playhouses, Fremont students created a fire truck playhouse, and Mann said she plans to bring ropes for students to use as hoses.
The Fremont students envision the playhouses creating the feel of a village when placed all together. They created a sign that says “Prescott Village” that they’ve hung by the structures. The houses sit on wood chips near lavender and shrubs called inkberry. A tall coast oak tree stretches out, providing shade to the portion of the yard where the tables and chairs that Fremont students created now sit.
Prober said that he thinks the playhouses will last a long time and be safe. The students mostly used redwood to build them, a wood which is durable against insect and water damage. According to Prober, the students “overbuilt everything with an eye for durability and safety,” used “high quality nails and bolts” and “framed them like a residential structure.”
The buildings ended up being very expensive and heavy, but Fremont got money for the project through Measure H funds, a parcel tax Oakland voters approved in 2022. Additionally, two Bay Area companies, GCI and Madrone, helped move the playhouses.
The tallest playhouse in Prescott Village would not have gotten made if it weren’t for the determination of Mateo. The eight foot tower is painted red and white in a brick pattern, has a coffeeshop area at the bottom, and small windows near the top that children can climb to to look out of. Mateo said his classmates asked to save that one for last, as they wanted to be sure to have time to build simpler playhouses before taking on something more complicated that they might not have time to complete.
“Instead of being upset,” Mateo said. “I just started working on the other playhouses.”
Although he said he was intimidated by the tools at first, Mateo ended up taking on a leadership role and helping students to design and construct the playhouses. Prober said Mateo showed up at lunchtime and before and after school to put extra work in. After all the other playhouses were finished, Mateo focused on Prescott Tower, and he finished it despite being under a time crunch.
“He made Prescott Tower into such a high quality playhouse,” Prober said. “I’m still kind of amazed at it.”
Laura McCaul contributed to this report. This article is scheduled to be published soon on the Post News Group’s website and in print in the Oakland Post.