Playgrounds - Carmel Mountain Preschool

Carmel Mountain Preschool is located on three lush acres with three separate playgrounds that are customized for the age group they serve.

Toddler & Two-Year-Old Playground

Our toddler and two year old yard has a vast grass area that invites children to run, a climbing structure, rolling hill, and a slide. These are all activities that are perfect for working a young child’s vestibular and proprioceptive systems. We included an herb garden and water feature which connects the children to nature and allows them to learn how to take care of the planet. When children are responsible for plants, they are learning how to take care of something outside of themselves which allows them to build empathy for others.

We also have a bike path to work their gross motor skills, a playhouse for imaginative play such as playing “house”, and musical instruments including drums and xylophones.

There is a flat bike path area where they can drive push cars or begin to experience the fun of riding pushbikes. The children have a playhouse where you can often see them playing make believe or simple games of hide and seek. The younger children really enjoy playing the magnetic board with the alphabet on it – they often are showing their teachers what new letters they have learned.

Three-Year-Old Playground

Re-designed in 2023, our three year old play yard is all about climbing! Located in the center of the grass is a large climbing structure where children are working hard to pull them selves up, balance while walking the side beams, and eventually working their way to jumping off and landing on the crash pad below. This structure was built from the foundation of a 100 year old navy supply building at the corner of North Harbor Drive and Broadway. Next to the climbing structure is a tire swing which is made from a Eucalyptus tree sourced from Escondido Creek conservancy.

This playground also has a large bike path, sand area, and swing set. A mud kitchen where children create many culinary masterpieces – main ingredient of course being mud. There is aconstruction area where they take their excavators and dump trucks to build sand cities and a water play area. This play yard also includes a climbing rope, two slides, a rock-climbing wall, and a walking path that goes around the flowers and herb garden.

Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Prep Playground

Our Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Prep playground was completely remodeled in 2023. This playground features a wood slide made from Deodar Cedar from La Mesa, and climbing cookies made from Torrey Pine from Del Mar. This yard also features a creek, water tables, mud kitchen, six swings, monkey bars, an art table, bike path, construction area, and a shady grass area which is used for large building blocks. This playground has appropriate risk that will help our children improve their balance, motor planning, and problem solving.

Sledding Hill

We built the CMP sledding hill because first of all, it is a ton of fun. You can hear the whoops and hollers of joy across campus from both students and teachers anytime anyone is on the sledding hill. Not only is it a blast, but our sledding hill provides preschoolers of all ages the ability to enhance their gross motor skills with their big body movements. Children need brain breaks in order to be able to absorb all the learning they do and the sledding hill provides this in a big way. It also teaches our children about how to manage age appropriate mitigated risk. They are able to scaffold their balance and climbing skills so that their bodies have the confidence and strength as they go out into the world. Can you imagine the amount of learning that would be enhanced if all our schools installed one of these amazing sledding hills?

Grassy Soccer Field

There is a large grassy soccer field on which children can play games and sports, run, picnic, and celebrate summer with water play. This is typically where we hold concerts, science events, hip hop, outdoor yoga and other special events. And our chickens love to explore the field when they are out of their Coop.