IT feels like Christmastime at Public Schools 185 and 208, which occupy adjacent buildings in Harlem.

In a conference room overlooking a barren, concrete schoolyard, half a dozen elementary-schoolers clamor around a bulletin board. "Hey, the little kids got a tricycle track!" exclaims a fifth-grader.

These students are getting their first look at plans for transforming their bleak, graffiti-covered schoolyards into inviting, state-of-the-art playgrounds.

But much of what the students see in the drawings isn't a surprise to them. They have been part of a three-year planning process that also includes the schools' principals, teachers, custodian, parents, and community members.

As a member of the playground committee, fifth-grader Shanequa Joyner has attended planning meetings for several years. Every time there's an after-school meeting, Shanequa goes uptown to pick up her three-year-old sister and then keeps her occupied with crayons and books during the two-hour sessions.

Since Shanequa and the other students know every inch of both the upper and lower schoolyards, their input is valuable. They know the most strategic locations for trash cans and are aware of the need for coat hooks and benches.

Student representatives are careful to represent the interests of everyone who will use the yards. "What about some open spots?" asked fifth-grader Jesus Gonzalez at one meeting. "I know the girls like to play double Dutch [a jump-rope game] every day."

The schoolyards now offer little more than blighted open space. That's the norm for schoolyards in urban America, says Roger Hart, director of the Children's Environments Research Group at the City University of New York Graduate Center, which is sponsoring the project.

Schoolyards generally contain no niches of any kind, Dr. Hart says. On top of bare pavement, schools usually put what Hart describes as "chimpanzee equipment." Such outdoor jungle gyms provide only a small portion of children's play needs, he says.

The two schoolyards in Harlem don't even have such primitive equipment. Graffiti-covered concrete structures adorn the lower yard. The upper yard has five basketball backboards. But only two have nets. One doesn't even have a rim. The yards are pocked with holes that become permanent puddles. Trash floats in the stagnant water.

"I really like what's going to be done with the schoolyard," Shanequa says. "Right now there are huge potholes like on the street. You can trip, slip, and bust your lip. It's happened to me before."

At night, drug dealing sometimes takes place in the dark corners of the yards. "You find little crack vials on the ground," Shanequa says. "That's not safe."

The new yards will offer a range of play opportunities, says Cindi Katz, co-director of the schoolyard project with Hart. "There are going to be quiet spaces for stories, work tables, a theater area where there can be performances, a garden."

"More learning happens in the play yard than in the school. Yet no one has recognized the need to structure that environment so that it supports that learning," says Mark Francis, a University of California, Davis, professor of landscape architecture and one of the designers.

THIS concept of schoolyards as extensions of the school building appeals to the teachers in Harlem. "I see so many areas in which children and teachers can gather for classes," said one enthusiastic teacher at the unveiling of the architect's drawings.

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