Month: May 2017

As fun as a trip to the playground can be, we all know that a range of uncomfortable scenarios can crop up from time to time as many different children play together on the same playground. Sometimes you may just look on to see how the children will handle the issue, but at times you’ll have to consider when you intervene with your children at the playground?

Some scenarios may involve conflicts, known dangers, or unacceptable behaviour of children towards others. The key instances below may well call for your intervention.

Fights Over Toys/Equipment

Many disagreements over toys will be minor, and it can actually be helpful to give the children space to work these situations out themselves. However, some instances can involve escalating tension, and if it reaches the point of physical altercations, such as pulling, scratching or even fists. then you should act fast to manage the situation.

There are various different ways of eliminating the problem, from offering to participate in the game, or by asking for the toy or ball, letting your child know that snatching and keeping the toy or ball stops the game and keeps others from enjoying it. Most children will want the play to continue, and so will begin to move towards a more shared approach to be involved.

Not Taking Turns on the Playground Equipment

When you notice children freeze on the equipment, it may be time you intervene. It’s important to assess whether the child has taken control of the equipment and is refusing to include others, or whether the child may have noted a sense of danger on the equipment or have fear about using it. If it is a case of being unsure of a certain piece of equipment, it may be an important step in their development to help a child on it and through it. Maybe a child is stuck in a piece of equipment, say a slide, in which case you can step in to help them out before they become distressed. Ensure children use equipment one after the other if the area is designed to handle only one child, as overloading can cause safety concerns.

When You Notice Aggressive Children

One major issue at shared playgrounds can be aggressive children who hit, push or even throw objects not meant to be thrown at other children. When you see such a child, it may be worth identifying who accompanied them to the playground. They may not even be aware of the behaviour, but it can be helpful to respectfully notify them of your concern about the child’s behaviour. If their parents, nanny or other guardian do not respond to help the situation, it’s best to move your child to a different space of the playground rather than to step in and intervene with the other person’s child. In instances where your child is the aggressor, the first thing to do is to encourage your child to apologise in the best way they know how. This kind of reaction helps to stop aggressive behaviours from developing.

In the vast majority of cases, outdoor playgrounds will be a place of non-stop fun and learning, but we’ve seen enough play times to know it’s always good to have a few behavioural management tips up your sleeve!

As any parent will know, the process of helping a young child to acquire language is one of the most fascinating and exciting in the whole of parenting. Hearing young ones move from making seemingly random sounds, to semi-coherent words, through to an ever developing vocabulary; it’s a wonderful journey. There are many different techniques you can employ to aid a child’s language acquisition, from repeating key words that you want them to learn, through to reading with them, to using educational cartoons and apps. One area that we’re passionate about, which you may or may not have heard much about, is learning through play. That can even apply to language acquisition and learning to talk.

One such example of this is in Oakland, California, where a play area located at Officer Willie Wilkins Park is designed with a language enhancing twist. While it may look entirely standard on the surface, hidden within are a number of features to help teach your children how to talk. Its play area is outfitted with the standard slides and swings, but blended in with them are white boards embellished with pictures and expressions intended to get them talking.

A Community Feature

There’s a slide to slip down, inclines to move up, extensions to cross, but this playground with its conversation prompts and accentuation on talking have unlocked a new educational boost for local residents of this neighbourhood. Given that when they are only a year-and-a half-old, children from low-salary families and those from higher-pay families already show huge contrasts in their average vocabularies, the key thought here is that parents and guardians can utilise the boards to start discussions with their children while they play.

The recreation centre sits in the eastern part of the city, in an area with high poverty rates and a number of social cohesion issues, which can impact on the time and ability that parental figures have to help their children with learning to talk.

Basics of Language Acquisition

At the age of three months, your child pays attention to your vocal sound and starts responding to familiar voices, as well as noticing music. Many newborn children seem to incline toward a lady’s voice over a man’s, while at the age of six months, a child often starts chattering with various sounds and also begins to recognise when their name is used. They also know their innate verbal keys, able to use their tone of speech to express you that they are joyful or miserable.

Around the age of nine months, most children begin to understand a couple of fundamental words like “No” and “Bye.” Following a (usually extended) period of tuning into your child’s ‘jibber jabber’ it’s an exciting moment when they at long last says their initial word/s; whether it’s Dada, Mama, or Baba. This procedure is a characteristic piece of advancement.

Bridging the Gap

Experts suggest that there is an ever-increasing “word crevice” that exists amongst low and high-income families. Children from poorer backgrounds tend to comprehend, and utilise fewer words by the time they reach school age, which puts them at an immediate disadvantage and can have long-haul negative impacts. The initial years of a child’s life are pivotal for a range of developmental issues, with learning to talk being just one. This is why it’s so vital to aid a child’s vocabulary during this window.

The play area in Willie Wilkins Park, with its educational white boards adorned with pictures and expressions intended to get individuals talking, is a tool for the vital young people who are still “blank slates” with regards to securing information that can help them later on in life. Credit to this local area for seeing the dual benefits of learning and play, something we emphasise with every project we take on and hope to see more of across the world.

Forward-thinking organisation Nubo has caught the eye recently by building a ‘holistic’ children’s playground in Australia. For the uninitiated, Nubo means cloud, and its purpose as an organisation is to design innovative spaces for children to feed their imaginations and nurture their creativity and curiosity.

The designers at Nubo say they apply a holistic approach to their creative spaces, enabling children to develop their interests through workshops, facilitated play and free play. The ‘holistic’ playground now open in Sydney is proving to be a great hit with children and their families. Unlike other indoor children’s play spaces that use bright colours and flashy designs, Nubo have created a white space and has chosen to concentrate on quality learning activities. The indoor playground is located in Alexandria, a suburb in the east of Sydney.

Enjoying 760 square metres of play space, which houses a variety of specialist spaces on different levels, the rooms offer children an exciting array of challenges. One example features giant building blocks to test their imaginations, while another is filled with books; a children’s library in a playground is an exciting blend for many children.

Private pods are available for little scholars, the focus point being a huge hot air balloon they can snuggle up in to read their favourite book. The theory behind the Nubo design for a holistic playground comes from best-practice in early-years education. Educationalists suggest that children need to have all of their senses stimulated to achieve peak learning.

Bright coloured objects may fascinate children, but theorists argue that relying on them all the time can actually limit a child’s imaginative development. This playground for children in Sydney provides an uncomplicated space with soft neutral colours on walls. There are traditional toys such as puzzles and robots, but each room also specialises in innovative learning. The music workshop encourages children to explore drama through games. A complete play kitchen occupies what is called the imagination room.

Local educators have describe the holistic playground as a “workshop heaven” but it’s also not an inexpensive one. An hour’s play costs $20, which is around £12, but parents are already full of praise for the facility’s ability to offer a space where children can simultaneously nourish their minds and encourage physical stimulation. The indoor playground is not just for children; parents are encouraged to interact with their children in a calm full-filled environment. The playground caters for children up to the age of 10. Some parents are of the opinion that it’s the younger children who seem to get the most out of it, but perhaps using this holistic approach early on will encourage children to be imaginative for longer as they grow older.

With giant pipes to scramble through and ceiling high climbing frames to dangle from, “Pure Play” is the signature phrase for this ‘holistic’ playground. The moment you walk into any of the spaces the state-of-the-art designs pull you in. With facilitated learning, free play and structured workshops all offered to accommodate varying styles of learning, the possibilities for creative play have suddenly become limitless.

A Massachusetts-based architect has found a beautiful way to merge fun play with stylish design elements, by building a play structure that encourages children to crawl, jump and even fly.

The playground comprises wood-clad spaces that offer a beautiful blend for children in the Massachusetts suburb. The children get interactive play activities which involve scurrying through, clambering over as well as zip-wiring to derive the kind of amusement any youngster can come to love.

The emphasised design of the playground was designed by Matter Design Studio’s Brandon Clifford and the FR|SCH Projects’ Michael Schanbacher. The designer and architect are well known for their other impressive projects. The Five Fields Play Structure joins the list of amazing designs they have finished.

During the 1950s, The Architects Collaborative (TAC) established a mid-century modern development, which is what neighbours the new play structure located on land shared by Lexington’s Five Field’s residents. TAC created the neighbourhood as an experiment, while the community, requested a new play structure that was safe and refreshing to children be built as a way to keep the experimental spirit alive.

According to the duo, the needs of the community were to have a space to challenge their children and help them to grow through play, made with functional components. Clifford and Schanbacher involved the playground’s most important prospective users, consulting local children during the structure’s design process.

A series of cuboid sections, clad in timber of a similarly light colour, form the structure which sits on a sloped site. The series of components slot together and are connected at various points, making use of ropes for routes through them. The children have to conquer their way through these rope obstacles.

Not content to stop there, the designers included a 20 metre (66 feet) long zip-wire that starts at a jump-off provided by one of the box elements. Another box makes up a tall lookout. Since the structure is on a slope, it cantilevers at its end and hence a shelter is made underneath. Children can manoeuvre the play structure with ease due to its scale. Adults can also access the play area should the children need any assistance.

Schanbacher and Clifford said that designing a play structure for children is not their usual project. They admitted they found it a challenging task, seeking to balance style, accessibility and function. Another designer Johanna Lobdell, provided colourful graphics for suggesting possible entrances. This is done without limiting any particular section of the structure.

The employment of design on the play area makes it appear like a real adventure game similar to arcade video games. Interesting entrances made of vertical tubes where children can shimmy through to the top or pull themselves onto a ledge are found on the graphics suggested entrances, with some architectural sections such as doors and stairs acting as a decoy and leading to nowhere.

According to the duo, the decisions made by the children produced escalating challenges for them, pushing them to find ways to control risks and make sure the new play area was accessible across age-ranges.

Overall, it looks like they’ve done a great job, and we’re always inspired to see designers who set a standard for outdoor playgrounds and what they can offer.

Sharing is a very important skill in life for any individual, and it factor into any parent’s responsibility to teach and encourage their children to learn to share at an early age. Sharing goes a long way to helping achieve positive outcomes in life, whether for children or adults, making interaction with others easier both in work and leisure spaces. Sharing can be encouraged creatively, and since children love to play, you can use this to your advantage.

Play Time

Children learn a lot through playing, developing several skills as they interact with their friends and toys. Children can learn social skills and how to express themselves by playing, particularly in a playground environment where they’re exploring new settings and tasks.

Practise

Practise makes perfect. To encourage your child to share, get involved in your child’s play times and try out games which require you to share, or a game that can be played in turns. This way, your child will learn to share by allowing you or any other person participating in the game to play their turn. Try planning games that will involve more people and also try using the word “share” in positive contexts throughout the day. Not only during play time can you encourage your child to share, but also in every other activity, for instance at meal time, especially if you are picking items for their plate from a central buffet style tray.

Praise

Even adults work best when motivated, but it’s particularly important to help your child learn through positive reinforcement, which can be done by praising and/or congratulating your child when he/she shares something. This will automatically motivate your child and encourage sharing, becoming a learned behaviour over time. Your child will want to share as they associate it with positive affirmation. By offering praise they will often be motivated and happy to share more.

Set a Good Example

Whether you notice it or not, your child looks up to you, will learn a lot from what you do, and will begin to imitate you in a host of different ways. Sharing appropriate food and drink, and particularly your time, with your child, will go a long way.

Don’t Overly-Punish your Child for not Sharing

As much as you want your child to learn sharing, it won’t come by constantly shouting or calling your child names such as, “selfish”. This can actually form a negative association for your child when they think of sharing, viewing it as forced. It can also create a rebellious attitude, so it’s much better to communicate with your child and try to find out why they don’t want to share, then you can explain to them why it’s important to share.

Teach your Child how to Express Themselves

Your child should learn how to express themselves with words. This will allow your child to use words when playing with other kids instead of just snatching their toys or commandeering the playground equipment. Your child will learn to explain to other kids why they should share, and model that behaviour to others.

Sharing is an important skill that takes time to develop, but once learnt it rarely goes away, and it often sets up youngsters to become the kind of people who can develop positive relationships both in the playground and throughout other areas of life.

Parenting is one of the most important and complex jobs on the planet, and every individual child is different, but experts suggest that one of the major mistakes made by made parents is actually in interfering with their children’s playtime and the learning it can produces.

Quite a few parents can hinder their children’s playtime by not realising what is needed for it to be successful, or the value that is contained within it. The importance of playtime cannot be underestimated, as it is crucial to a child’s wellbeing and offers other benefits such as learning motor skills, co-ordination, how to resolve conflicts, and also to use their imagination.

We’re passionate about learn through play and all the advantages that come with having a playtime, and we also have great respect for parents and guardians. That said, parents can interfere unnecessarily at times. Here are five common ways parents hinder a child’s playtime.

Issue Too Many Warnings

Some parents should let go of a few of the fears they have over their children having their own playtime. These fears can actually prevent children from trying new things. Children should be encouraged to always be confident, curious and explore new things. Worrying about every little thing that the children do should be avoided. Of course it is vital to make safety provisions, and a concern for your child’s wellbeing is a great quality, but a healthy balance needs to be found.

Allocating a fixed play ’script’

Many TV shows present a certain theme or costume, with children beginning to show an interest after watching these shows. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the problem can come when parents limit children to only specific costumes, toys or play types without any freedom to make their own choices. Parents should at least let their children negotiate a little and choose the roles they will play, especially if they’re preparing a play or scenario. Being actively involved allows children to develop their minds, solve tension and also exchange creative ideas.

Too Many Responsibilities

This is another major thing that can hinder playtime, particularly as they get older, as many schedules force children to focus on a range of curricular and extra-curricular activities, leaving little or no time for play. In many cases, the most original and creative play is developed when a child has time and space, which these days can be an increasingly rare case.

Relying on ‘Screen Time’

It’s rare to find a child who will turn off a screen voluntarily. Whether it’s the TV, smartphone, tablet or computer games, these tools are addictive, seeming to instantly gratify children more powerfully than toys or outdoor play. That may be the case, but instant gratification isn’t always helpful, so parents should set limits on the amount of time their children spend with screens and provide better alternatives that show their children how to bring out fun in different ways.

Over-supervising

Another mistake that parents can make is hovering too close to their children while they are playing. Particularly as children start to grow up and get more confident in their abilities, this prevents children from being creative due to the overbearing eye of their parents. Parents can even allow their children to be involved in conflicts to a degree, allowing them to resolve them independently and later providing helpful feedback.

One important thing for parents to be aware of her is that, actually, they are not always the ones that should provide the solutions to their children’s boredom. Mentally, children develop faster when they are left to make their own choices and be the solution to their own problems. This is because making their own decisions requires time, privacy and other necessary tools. Of course, a parent shouldn’t become distance and disengaged, but again there is a healthy balance to be found.

For the adult, play may seem a distant memory, but for the child, play is a major and defining part of life. Most of this play is done with household toys, with toys not just being items for fun, but also tools that children can use to learn about a host of important life concepts, including gender. One essence of good parenting is to teach your child basic values of life and respect. So, is it possible that the toys we’re buying our children are sending them mixed messages? A UK campaign called ‘Let Toys be Toys’ is suggesting that people are tired of toys being labelled for one gender only.

Gendered toys limit exploration

Christia Brown, an associate professor at Kentucky University, states that babies do not care about gender-specific toys until they are taught the general expectations of their gender. At a very young age, they will play with anything, until around the age of 3-5 years. Children at that age, will be much more susceptible to following instruction about the expected divide between genders, says Brown, the author of “Parenting Beyond Pink & Blue: How to Raise your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes”.

According to Brown, in experiments, most girls don’t immediately gravitate towards dolls and princess dress-up, but are actually more likely to play with trucks if they see other girls playing with the same truck. Toys help children to learn new skills and to develop cognitively and intellectually. They can help with learning language and through the use of toys such as Lego blocks, can even help develop spatial skills. According to Lisa Dinella, a professor at Monmouth University, if we put children down a specific one-way track, they are likely to lose not just in their ability to explore at a particular moment, but also overall development.

Children pay a social cost for crossing genders

According to Dinella, every decision you make, from the theme colour of the child’s party to the clothes they wear, begins to define gender for them. Every time that they do not subscribe to communally-agreed rules, they may pay a price, Dinella suggests. Elizabeth Sweet, a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis, explains that until recently, toys have always been divided along expected gender roles.

Girls’ toys would usually reflect qualities such as motherhood or homemaking while boy toys would suggest signs of careers such as engineers, military or doctors. Nowadays, says Sweet, marketing has shifted the direction to, rather than reflect societal roles, focus on fantasy figures. Girls’ toys are princesses and pop stars, while boys’ toys have shifted to action figures and superheroes. Toys are, effectively, adult ideas of what it is that kids want. Very rarely do we think of the impacts when this idea is unrealistic and unachievable. According to Sweet, they are more often than not exaggerated ideas of femininity and masculinity.

According to Brown, all toys are essentially gender neutral at the point of creation, but the marketing of them is usually not. Ideally, toys could be marketed by category, so that we have puzzle toys and children’s bikes. They could exist in all the colours of the rainbow and marketed to all kids equally. Children could choose toys based on personal preference, says Sweet, rather than gender expectations. Dinnella holds that toys are brilliantly useful for aiding a child’s imagination, so why market them in a way that limits their possibilities?

For many years, many fast food restaurants have incorporated play areas for children into their spaces, whether a small area with toys, desks, paper and crayons, or a full playground space. Increasingly though, fast food companies are strategically designing their buildings to appeal to a more mature audience. These companies are incorporating a more café style template, shying away from their traditional kid-friendly playground theme. Some of these design changes are based on the rise of social media, with a greater focus on digitising their spaces, as well as the fact that most young people who visit these restaurants are between the ages of 9 and 16.

The majority of them have their own smartphone or are using their parent’s phone; they play video games, text, and watch videos. Very few of these children pay attention to the playgrounds located on the side of the buildings, while those children who do play on the playgrounds lose attention are losing attention quickly because there are too few objects to play with. It’s apparent that a new generation of higher quality playground equipment is in order.

An additional factor is the fact that families taking their children to these restaurants has gone down 18.6% from 2011 to 2016. That said, some of these companies are resilient and won’t completely remove their playgrounds. For example, while McDonalds has started to remove playgrounds from their outside facilities, they still include some indoor playgrounds. Also, some companies that were built around appealing to children like McDonalds and Burger King can look to earn profit from having these playgrounds included, either through charging a small fee for use, or by keeping families on-site for longer and encouraging them to by more food items.

There is a clear shift in the fast food market producing more buildings, without playgrounds in the blueprints. Social Media has rewritten the meaning of ‘Play’ as well as apps like Pokémon Go, with adults and children alike experiencing individualised adventures specific to each player. The previous playground archetype struggles to compete with an app that motivates personal adventures and has the convenience of round-the-clock accessibility.

It’s clear that modern playgrounds have to innovate in order to compete, setting a standard for physically active play rather than conforming to the new idea of what recreational play is. Over the last 30 years of companies reducing play facility sizes, we’re seeing playgrounds shifting to a smaller condensed version, particularly as site costs increase and space comes at a premium. Even in some cases, isolating them outside in locations where it’s smaller and much less relevant. For business owners, this meant more playgrounds were seen as more work than they’re worth. If companies keep these facilities open, it needs to be in the hopes of creating an innovative way of competing with their digital counterparts.

Here at Creative Play, we see our innovative and modern outdoor playgrounds thriving in schools and parks, with a few restaurant chains or individual eateries enlisting our services. It will be interesting to see if playgrounds continue to have a presence with big fast food chains.

As architects and urban planners around the world ditch unsustainable metals and plastics in favour of recycled materials, eco-friendly playgrounds are gaining momentum. Children are instinctively creative and they’re capable of turning almost any item into a play piece, so it makes sense that their playground materials come from many different sources.

Many waste materials are now receiving a fresh breath of life and being transformed into wacky playground innovations that are capable of entertaining children for years and years to come.

We’ve put together a selection of some of the most inventive eco-friendly playgrounds from countries around the globe.

Wikado Playground, The Netherlands

Old windmills and modern wind turbines are a historical part of the Dutch identity, and they’ve been given a whole new use in this futuristic Rotterdam playground. The maze-like play structure is made from 5 discarded wind turbine blades that have been cut up into parts and re-painted. The recycled blades make up a slide tower, a watchtower, tunnels, bridges, ramps, and slides.

Rubber Tree playground, Thailand

The Rubber Tree playground utilizes discarded tyres as its primary building material. The tyres are made to resemble the form of a tree and they’re held together by a bamboo frame in order to avoid the use of metal. The Dutch designer AnneMarie van Splunter created the play sculpture for 1000 refugee children who were stationed along the border of Thailand and Burma.

Lion’s Park playground, Alabama

A group of students from Auburn University’s Rural Studio put together their most creative efforts to build an entire playground out of 2000 recycled steel drums that had been donated. The one-of-a-kind play area is filled with vibrant sound tubes and swing sets, and it was created to replace a more dated playground that was in need of a renovation.

The Geopark, Norway

This Norwegian playground is made completely from recycled oil rig materials such as plastic buoys. The Geopark is located in Stavanger which is the base for Norway’s oil industry, so it’s very fitting that the playpark has made use of industry debris. The thriving waterfront park has become a hub where both locals and tourists can enjoy biking, climbing, skating and chilling out at the waterfront.

Carlos Teixeira’s ‘The Other, The Same’ installation, Brazil

This recycled cardboard labyrinth made its first appearance at the 29th International Biennial in Sau Paulo. The installation is made completely from layers of cardboard that are built on top of mobile platforms. You might want to think twice the next time you decide to discard that old cardboard box!

Most grandparents will be well-acquainted with the feeling of watching their young grandchildren race around on swings and roundabouts at the local park as they sit rather idly on a nearby bench.

But soon, this could be the other way around. Playgrounds that are designed specifically for the elderly are springing up all over the world. In a matter of years, it could be the children sat twiddling their thumbs and watching on as their grandparents have fun and exercise.

This may seem like a laughable idea, but rest assured, these senior playgrounds do not follow the typical swing-slide set up of your typical child’s play area. Instead, they’re full of low-impact machines and equipment that’s specifically built to exercise older limbs and muscles. The idea is to promote flexibility, balance, and coordination among an aging population, bringing them outdoors to meet people and make friends in the local area.

Senior playgrounds originate in China. They came into being over two decades ago after a national decree mandating fitness programs for all ages. Since then, they’ve sprung up in cities all over the world, proving especially beneficial in the UK, Finland, Japan, Germany, Canada and Spain, where more than 40% of the population will be over 65 by 2050. Barcelona has the most senior playgrounds by far, now boasting now more than 300 installations.

Just like children’s playgrounds, these areas for the elderly are meant to be fun. As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”.

Play is the best way to encourage older people to take risks and push themselves outside of their physical comfort zones. Even a few hours a week of walking or exercising on a strider, leg press or recumbent bicycle will allow older people to gradually extend their capabilities and encourage them to start feeling differently about themselves.

Must Have Play are the first American company to design wellness playgrounds specifically for seniors. Their president Michael Cohen spoke on the light-hearted nature of senior playgrounds, explaining that “If you make it playful, people will enjoy themselves. It won’t feel like a workout, and they’ll want to come back”.

For years. doctors have been urging their older patients to undergo light exercise on a regular basis, especially those suffering from heart conditions, diabetes and obesity. But attempts on the behalf of OAP’s to adapt a new lifestyle have been particularly low.

Many over-60s are reluctant to join fitness clubs, namely because they haven’t grown up with modern-style gyms and are often unsure of how to work the equipment. Many older people have also admitted to feeling excluded by the atmosphere of serious training in these facilities, not to mention being surrounded by super-fit bodies dressed in close-fitting gym outfits. Taking all this into account, it’s unsurprising that OAPs have tended to shudder and stay away from modern gyms.

Senior playgrounds are different. They offer a relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere where everyone else using the equipment is also over 60. The machines designed to look as unthreatening as possible with their chunky structures and bright colours, resembling giant versions of children’s play equipment. They can be used with ordinary clothes and shoes, and they’re recommended for patients who are unfit as well as those recovering from major surgeries. The benefits of senior playgrounds are innumerable, so why aren’t we building more of them?