Carpet Squares

Today I made modification to the shanty town; that is still going well on the playground. The shanty town itself is basically a very large wooden setting. Built of pallets, beams and other loose parts the children have slowly taken into it, it takes up a large space in the playground.
And so far it has gone down a treat, I spent a couple of days building it (while we were closed) so the children didn't see me building it. And have changed the basic design from the one I built last year. I focused more on actual dwellings in building last years shanty town but this year focused on it being more of a setting that could be moved through. The ground floor is full of twists and turns, dead ends and hidden entrances that I struggle to fit through and can never seem to navigate even though I built it(unlike the children). The first floor is a series of roof and walls, with a slope, beam bridges and trapdoors leading to the lower floor. And the second floor consists of various platforms that the children jump from at great height.
And of course the children are able to built, destroy, inhabit etc. this space to their hearts content.

I could speak about that for ages, and on modifications for even longer. But todays thought was on a much smaller modification I made to the setting as a whole. That being that as the weather made a turn for the worse and as the whole town is made of pallets they inevitably become quite slippery. And as many of them have become very well calibrated to the space and evermore daring when it comes to the jumps and gaps they traverse, I do not want them to fall from a height of ten feet at the lowest.
So my modification was to nail squares of carpet on the points where the children jumped from, and landed at. It worked well and I tested each jump and found that their was more than enough grip. But standing on one of the highest points I looked out at the shanty town and saw all these squares telling me where to jump and where to land. And I realised that in fact my modification was quite prescriptive and no doubt would influence where the children jumped and landed.
I stand firm in my opinion that it was necessary and right, the pallets were slippery and posed more of a danger than a risk. But nonetheless I'm aware that it was also prescriptive; despite the fact that the points where I hammered in these carpet squares were the points that I had observed children jumping and landing at the most.

It made me think that even though my modification managed the risk in the spaces most used. That it didn't nothing to add grip to the jump and land points that have not been used or found yet. No doubt the children will get bored of those gaps and will find, invent or create new ones. Yet I have done nothing to combat the slipperiness of those pallets yet to be jumped from and landed on.

It was a reminder that I can only respond to play as it is, not as what it will be or could be.