playgroundful

In addition to a long list of radio-phonographs and records, projector, piano, folding chairs for meetings, bulletin boards, a cello for the orchestra, typewriter and mimeograph, card catalogues and files, 17 trees for the grounds, bookshelves and books, there’s a whole playgroundful of sports equipment donated.

1950 April 23, “PTA Gifts Worth Thousands—Even Electric Eraser Cleaner: In Just One City School, Contributions Were Valued At Over $2,500 In 4 Years—But Intangibles Are Important Too”, in Sunday News, volume 27, number 33, Lancaster, Pa., section “Can’t Be Counted”, page 19

The new experience involves a lot of preparation … new clothes, a physical examination, learning how to get to school plus the adjustment to taking or buying one’s lunch, getting to know a teacher and playing new games with a playgroundful of children.

1957 September 1, “6-Year Olds Preview ‘First Day Of School’”, in The Arizona Daily Star, volume 116, number 244, Tucson, Ariz., section B, page one

By late afternoon a whole playground-ful of items had been auctioned off, including four collie pups, an old piano, toys, baby cribs, farm machinery, straw, beans, and even an armload of “Hula Hoops.”

1964 October 25, “Proceeds for Tuition: Ashley Turns Out For Novel Auction”, in The State Journal, Lansing—East Lansing, Mich., page A-1

But undoubtedly a whale beached incongruously on a clearance site in a mildly tough area of Liverpool, between boozer and bookie, tatty pawnshop and towering council flats.[…]There was a good playgroundful of kids, lapping round the long-suffering leviathan in cursing currents as the word spread that you could get in- or on, or under it at the other end, losing interest as they were shooed off and finding fresh attractions in sliding down the roof of an adjacent school or breaking whisky bottles in front of passing cars.

1969 August 25, Robin Thornber, “Very like a whale”, in The Guardian, page 6

Outside a blue jay’s ragged discussion with himself answered what sounded like a distant playgroundful of children merrily slaughtering each other at recess.

1973, Virginia Quarterly Review, page 429