Let the Games (and Lessons) Begin!

The field behind Sully Elementary School was a sea of mud Thursday morning, with hard plastic girders jutting up at 90-degree angles and the sound of circular saws piercing the misty silence.

The bleak setting hardly seemed the culmination of a year of intense planning and fundraising by a determined group of parents that was not satisfied with the set of monkey bars that passed for the Sterling school's entire playground.

But peering through the drizzle, Peter Kronenberg, one of two parents who made Discovery Park their passion this year, could see what was to come: a detailed replica of Mount Vernon; "whisper dishes" that teach kids how sound travels; a rock wall studded with the planets of the solar system.

"We didn't want something out of a catalogue," Kronenberg said. "We wanted something different."

Today, that vision and persistence, not to mention a week's worth of back-breaking manual labor by dozens of volunteers, will pay off with the completion of Discovery Park, a $230,000, 11,000-square-foot super-playground that combines educational discovery with old-fashioned play.

It has the slide, monkey bars and swing set that make up a traditional playground. But the park, which officially opens next Sunday, also has a history area that includes replicas of buildings integral to Virginia history, which fourth-graders study as part of state curriculum standards.

It has a "water wall" donated by the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority. Part play-thing, part museum exhibit, the interactive wall shows the cycle of water through the Chesapeake Bay watershed, complete with buttons that create a fine mist.

And the park has a set of handmade outdoor musical instruments, interactive exhibits about good nutrition and Virginia animal habitats, and a gazebo held up by six pillars inscribed with the qualities of good character.

"They're going to be out here playing, and they're going to be learning without even realizing it," said Valerie Petrey, the other parent who led the project.

Petrey and Kronenberg are past presidents of the school's parent-teacher organization. In previous years, they said, the organization had trouble raising the roughly $40,000 needed to build an old-fashioned playground. But something more elaborate, something educational, might generate more interest, they surmised.

They were right. In addition to smaller donations, they secured a $20,000 grant from the Claude Moore Foundation and a $120,000 grant from the Loudoun Economic Development Foundation, all in a year's time. And donations of equipment, labor and food came from local businesses.

"It's the uniqueness that really sparked the interest," said Clark Bowers, Sully's principal. "And the dogged persistence of two parents who made this their lives for an entire year."

Petrey and Kronenberg enlisted Leathers & Associates, a playground construction company based in Ithaca, N.Y., to design and manage the project. The company brought with it an ethic: Building a playground should also build a community.

"For me, after 150 playgrounds, it's much more about the process than the product," said Michael Cohen, the project manager for the company, who also labored in the muck last week. "It's like a barn-raising."

The company has a strict policy that it says makes for a better community-building experience. Planning and fundraising can't exceed 12 months, Cohen said, and construction must be done within a week, exclusively by volunteers, some skilled, some not.

The community aspect, however, was a bit disappointing last week to organizers, who had expected hundreds of parents and friends to volunteer for at least a few hours during the week of construction that began Monday. A few dozen showed up most days and, on the rainy, gusty days, even fewer.

The result was a playground a bit less elaborate than the one they had hoped for, Kronenberg said. He said there probably would be fewer embellishments and personal touches but conceded that the children, and most parents, wouldn't know the difference.

On Thursday, despite the mud and low turnout, enthusiasm for the project was palpable. In one corner, Bowers pieced together a vibrant-purple curly-slide, his school shoes replaced by a muddy pair of work boots.

Everything, including the slide, is made of high-quality plastic, which will not require maintenance for decades, organizers said.

A few feet away, Peggy Darr, a former fourth-grade teacher at Sully, assembled a set of plastic spires, adornments for part of the park.

Bundled in a puffy fall jacket, she lamented that she retired last spring, too soon to incorporate the park into her history lessons, which in the latter years of her career had been bogged down by the narrow, state-mandated curriculum, she said.

"With the [state standards], they're taking all the fun out of education, frankly," Darr said. "Hopefully this will put some of the fun back in."

Today is the last day of construction at Discovery Park, and anyone is welcome to help. Volunteers should call Peter Kronenberg at 703-887-5623 or simply show up at the school at 300 Circle Dr., Sterling. More information is available athttp://www.sullypto.com.