Children’s Playgrounds and Outdoor Gyms



You will now find this post on our new website Kidsinthegarden.co.uk

 

Please note that this blog has now moved to Kidsinthegarden. We would love you to take a look.

What happens?  When our children are small toddlers, pre-school and perhaps up to the age of 5/6 we spend hours with them in the local playgrounds.  They are regular venues, with picnics on summer days and winter visits when the weather is dry.  Once they start school and weekday time is pre-allocated the family trips to playground start to decrease.

We do in fact use our local playground mainly as it is conveniently right outside the school and a quick ½ hour play at pick up helps to release all that pent up energy.  There is no afternoon play time in my son’s junior school so at 3.30pm he will have been indoors for 2 ½ hours.

A recent weekend trip with my son and his 10 year old cousin got me thinking about how we utilise playground for ‘older’ kids.  Most local authorities state that their playgrounds are for children aged 3 – 13.  However I’m sure that any survey of usage would show that they are predominately used by children from 1 year to 5 years.

There are many great things about UK playgrounds.  The following bonuses come to mind:-

• Can be found in most villages and urban settings.
• Open all year.
• Free.
• Safe – regularly inspected.
• Often with parking nearby.
• Can be great fun.

Why then do families with older children begin to stop using them?   Based on my own experiences here are my suggestions:-

• You just get out of the habit of going out to the playground.
• It is difficult to find a playground that holds their attention.
• As there begins to be more demands on a child’s spare time with clubs, activities and dare I say additional coaching, playground time slips to the bottom of the to do list.
• Some older children may not venture outdoors as much as they did – the lure of the computer, TV and Nintendo is great.
• Perhaps some parents think that as their children play on equipment in the school playground there is no need for family time at the playground.
• Finally maybe playgrounds are not so cool, whereas a skate park or BMX track is.

This weekend trip to the playground was actually at the children’s request, so i knew i was onto a winner.  It is one we have to drive to and therefore had not visited for almost a year.  We did use to go there quite often as it has a range of equipment, some natural play areas and for some reason it is never very busy.  Sure enough when we arrived mid- morning on a sunny Sunday it was empty.

There are 3 pieces of play equipment that they really love in this playground, 2 of which I have not seen elsewhere.  I think, for them, that is the main appeal of the playground.  The first piece of equipment needs true gripping power as you have to jump to hang from a bar from which you can then spin your whole body around.  Great for upper body strength.  I quite like to have a go as it helps to stretch out the back.  You do however have to be quite tall to reach the bar and  I have to lift my son to it.  Obviously made for older kids then.

The other is a novel version of a see-saw, where you have to really work with your legs and you can to some extent control the speed and intensity of the movement.   At least half their time was spent on these two pieces of equipment.  I’m sure it was more than novelty value, they seemed to have provided them with just the right level of interest and excitement.

 

A couple of years ago the playground received some natural play items, a wooden dugout canoe, natural stage and stepping stones.  All great stuff, however for some reason children never seem to spend much time in this area.  Possibly because it is located away from the main play rather than parallel to the existing equipment.



 

 

 

We stayed quite a while that morning and eventually a couple of families with toddlers did arrive.  There was quite a contrast between the noise levels and boisterousness of my two and the instability and smallness of the little ones. 

 

On our journey that morning, and in fact just around the corner from the playground is an outdoor gym.  On popular demand we stopped off to have a go en route home.  I was slightly nervous at letting the children use what I considered to be adult equipment.  However I needn’t have worried on two counts.  Firstly the signage stated that it was for use from the age of seven.  Well maybe, but they did need very close supervision.  There was real potential for harm on some of those pieces of equipment.  Secondly they loved it.  The amount of pleasure they had really did equal that of the playground. It was though a very static form of exercise and there was certainly no possiblity for the run around the other playground provided. 

 

I can’t help thinking that there must be some potential in converting some of this equipment to meet the needs of an older child.  I am also pleading for playground manufacturers to design more exciting and interesting playground equipment for the 7+ child.  The few pieces of equipment used by the children today proves that it can be done.

Let’s get our junior children back into the playgrounds.  Where do you go and play with your family?  Is it a local Playground?

You will now find this post on our new website Kidsinthegarden.co.uk



Autumn Leaf Hopscotch

The autumn leaves in the south of the UK have been wonderful this year.  I have been seeing fantastic artwork, collages and patterns made from leaves.  This weekend a brief chat with my 7 year old about what use we could put some of the many leaves in our garden led to a eureka moment.  What garden game would be great to play with leaves outdoors?  We came up with autumn leaf hopscotch.  Hope you like the idea.

As it’s such a simple project  the photographs may explain it all. However we had such fun concocting it, counting, sorting, and deciding which leaves to use and then working out patterns for each number I thought I’d share a bit more detail with you.

We used leaves from the garden, but this activity is a great use of all those leaves bought back from an autumn walk that you never know what to do with.  Ours either lie dried up and shrivelled indoors or wet and soggy outside.  Flat leaves seem to work best, but you don’t have to use pressed leaves.  For some leaf shapes turning the leaf to its underside meant it was easier to lay them out.  It also gave us a chance to explore the vein patterns underneath and also note the different colourations.  Some of the leaves were really beautiful on their ‘other’ side.

As for the hopscotch – do you remember how to play?  I had to think twice.  I had played it with my son when he was small and just learning his numbers, but not recently.  He obviously had not played it in the school playground (ever? or in recent past?) Oh dear the demise of playground games.  I’ll be popping a piece of chalk in his pocket this week.  I have a little book which we use as our Games Bible,  called 'The Games Book -  how to play the games of yesterday' which is currently available on Kindle.

Here’s a quick run down of the rules just in case you can’t remember either.  You number squares from 1 to 10 in the pattern shown in the first photo.   The aim is to be the first to finish to square 10.  The game can be played with a group or just one person.  You throw a small pebble onto square one.  If it lands fully within the square you jump over the square containing the pebble left foot in square 2 and right foot in square 3.  Continue hopping and jumping until you reach square ten then turn balancing on one foot and hopscotch back to squares 2 and 3 to pick up the pebble from square one.  If you touch a line, lose your balance or miss a square. Your turn is over and you must start at square one again.  You must never step on the square which has your pebble.

 

 

This is how we spent our Sunday morning - a great way to be out in the clear frosty air.  If I had thought about it I would have used a fir cone instead of a small stone just to complete the autumn theme.

By the way 2 little points to note.  Yes you will step on the leaves and patterns and mess them up, but that can be easily rectified.  It was a lovely calm dry sunny day on Sunday.  This version of hopscotch probably won’t work on a windy day!

 



When is a Bird Scarer not a Scarecrow

The iconic bird scarer for children to make is, of course, the scarecrow. It’s quite a complicated project to try and many are a tad too large for small suburban gardens. Having already tried hanging CDs over our plot we appreciate that scarers do perform an important role. So we were delighted to take this idea from a National Trust Allotment – a very mobile potato bird ideally suited to scare its feathered friends away.


We found we already had everything we needed to make it:-

• A large knobbly potato for its head.

• Feathers found in the garden from a bird which probably didn’t make it.

• A teasel for its beak, though you could use another small potato.

• A thin piece of bamboo stick (approx 6 feet in length) which will bend easily.

• String to tie it too the stick.

Potato Bird Scarer

First make a hole through the centre of your potato. This will need adult supervision. Ours was quite a soft old potato so the hole was easily made. Then attach the beak and decorate with feathers and any other objects that take your fancy. Finally thread the string through the hole in the potato and tie a large note at that end. Tie the other end of the string to the bamboo stick allowing sufficient length so the bird is approximately two feet off the ground when the pole is fully flexed.

Then, hey presto, you have a mobile bird which can circle and move around your vegetable patch, showing the other birds who is in charge. At least that is the theory. Let me know what you think and how you get on.

How Green is My Garden?

The foliage in my garden has now all appeared and as usual various shades and hues of green predominate. So we have been playing the matching the shades game. I first saw this played in an outdoor centre in West Yorkshire with some teenagers, but I didn’t see why it wouldn’t work with younger children. I used some colour paint charts picked up from my local DIY store


We then had fun collecting leaves and trying to match them to the different shades of green for good 15 minutes. I have realised that if you want to get an exact match it is nigh impossible. Nevertheless it is a great game for the outdoors – fun, educational and providing the opportunity for stickers at the end of it. It really got my son looking at the foliage and thinking which shades were lighter and darker. We had a little chat about the variety of green colours in nature and how the leaves were different in size, shape and texture.

If you don’t have access to colour charts a set of coloured pencils may work just as well. Matching different colours is obviously an easier game. It would work well for younger children and help them learn their colours.

We are off to Scotland in a while and I hope to get some walking in. There will now be a couple of colour charts in my rucksack so we can play the spot the colour game as a way to help keep little legs moving.

10 Reasons to get out into the Garden

The weather is picking up and the daylight is here for longer so it is now time to spend those hours in the garden. To motivate myself and my family to move from the sofa, through the french doors, to the garden I have been listing the benefits of outdoor play for all of us.


• You move differently and more often when you are in the garden. Children can engage in more physical activity which in turn helps their development.

• It is easier to experiment - with noise, with large objects and anything that needs space. The sense of freedom gets the kids more active and active kids are happier kids.

• You use all of your senses outside. You see the difference between light and shade, your sense of smell is heightened, and you can hear what is going on around you.

• You are literally closer to nature and your kids can observe the birds, minibeasts and monitor the plants growing and other changes in the garden.

• You can get stuck into gardening – digging, growing, weeding and watering – the children can have a go at them all.

• You are more aware of the elements and weather. You can feel the wind and see it moving the foliage, smell the rain and splash in the puddles.

• Outdoors is great for messy play with water and sand, glitter and moon sand, in fact, any craft activity.

• If the kids are outside you are likely to find yourself outside more.

• You can be more creative outside – the more time you spend outside the more you will want to. Think about spending time your front garden as well – it’s a great way to catch up with your neighbours.

• It’s an easy way to stay fit – all those running around games, mowing the lawn and digging. Apparently if you weigh 10 stone, an hour spent weeding uses 290 calories whereas you will use only 60 calories watching TV.


The garden is not only the best children’s playroom in our house, it also an outdoor gym, chill out space, and sensory room for us all. It is a fantastic and indispensable resource.