When I was a kid, we had quite the area to play. At mom's house, our yard was at least an acre. We had a large pond stocked with fish over in the side yard. We had a field behind our house and could hike back to a stream in the woods. At dad's house, we had hills in the yard, a huge field behind the house where we could hike back to the "rock stop" on the way to the stream back there.
My kids? They aren't exposed to quite enough nature, in my opinion. This is ok as we love our house and love Southern California weather and love our jobs here. So, when it comes to building dams to stop streams of water, they make do in our backyard. Our backyard has some grass, but is mostly concrete as it is the result of the driveway coming from the street, past the east side of our house, then around the back to the garage which is on the west side of our property. This is a great space for our merry-go-round, more recently our little pool, and creating dams where the water runs down from the higher part of the concrete yard down the drain that ultimately ends up in the street.
The scraps of wood are leftovers from the re-build of the merry-go-round. I gave them to the kids after hearing myself repeat for the 100th time, "Leave the sand in the sandbox!" However, they still don't leave the sand in the sandbox, because the wooden pieces seem to need sand mortar to help stop the water.
Disadvantage: We have to buy more sand, yet again, for the sandbox.
Advantage: If I need to get something done in the house, all I have to do is turn on the hose for a couple of minutes, and they are entertained for quite a while.
