Scramble Vision
Our vision is simple: extraordinary play for children. Our playground is clean, safe, fun, and perfect for year-round play. We strive to create activities that develop children’s minds and bodies. Our soft play equipment is the best available, developed from meticulous planning and preparation.
Families need a space to come together; to enjoy locally sourced food, to celebrate birthdays, and to let loose. And kids need a space to grow; through physical and cognitive play and meeting new friends. We’d like to meet all of these needs and serve the community with the upmost service.
To create an extraordinary play place, we need extraordinary staff. We aim to recruit and thoroughly train our team members, offering competitive pay and family-friendly working conditions
Scramble Background
Laurence Smallman, stay-at-home dad, started Scramble in 2017. On a visit to visit his family in the UK, Laurence and his three children stumbled across a local indoor play center. Inspired by the clean, safe space, Laurence launched himself into research, aided by the Alexandria Small Business Development Center. With effort and dedication, the first Scramble became reality in West Alexandria.
Scramble was so highly attended that in 2021, Laurence opened up a second location in Falls Church. Both locations are now thriving under the care of Scramble staff and love and support from the community.
We believe that Scramble is an important part of the community. Each location is proud to support local schools and other, child-focused endeavors. Our main effort is directed to helping public schools and the parent-teacher associations that work so hard to help every child in their local area.
Scramble Values
Play is essential for human development. Current research explores why we play from infancy to our adult years. We try to cater to every type of play so kids can master different skills and grow as intelligent, creative, strong, and sociable humans.
Physical play keeps our bodies strong and flexible, improves our stamina, and enhances balancing skills. This might look like climbing a ladder and sliding down a slide, or stacking Lego blocks.
Cognitive play develops creative and imaginative skills. From these, we begin learning the social skills we use throughout our lives. This might look like pretending to be fairies, reading a book, or making a friend.
Narrative play brings these skills together so we can play complex games, problem solve, and create imaginative worlds. This might look like a game in which some kids act as mice and others act as cats, chasing each other and figuring out game and social rules as they go.
Children do not need to be told how to play – it is an innate ability. Scramble offers children a clean, safe, and fun place to explore all types of play. Adults remain responsible for supervising their children and they can do this in the way that best suits their family, taking full advantage of our free Wi-Fi and excellent cafe.