Benefits of Sensory Play through Sand & Water

Summer’s here and as the temperature rises you’ve probably found your mind wandering to visions of hot sand and cool water. Imagine lying out in the sun and digging your feet into the coarse sand, and feeling the force of a wave coming from, and receding back into the ocean. It’s enough to bring you back to your childhood, when sandcastles and splashing around at the beach was an exhilarating day. Playing with sand and water may be one of the first ways we develop our cognitive understanding of the world. It helps a child understand the basic scientific laws of nature, and cause and effect. With all of the benefits, it’s easy to see why sand and water play should be integrated into the local playground.
The Alexander Kemp playground at Cambridge Commons in Cambridge Massachusetts is a perfect example of water and sand play integration. With an array of inter connected water tables troughs and a hand cranked pump, children are able to manipulate the flow of water from one table to the next, observing the changes as they happen. What happens when you block the water flow with sand, or use a shovel as an impromptu levee? Will the water simply stop, or will it flow over the edges of the shovel? What happens when you use sand and mud instead of a shovel? It’s through this exploration and experimentation that children experience how organic and predictable physics in nature can be. Children begin to make mental connections through this experimentation, helping them further understand the world around them. The meanings of the words moist and muddy are completely abstract to a child until they can feel and sense it for themselves.
In addition to the sensory benefits of sand and water play, they also have the added benefit of being able to be manipulated and changed. Unlike your average playground structure that is solid, static, and unmovable, sand and water have the ability to be used in an almost infinite amount of ways. This leads to both a focused solo type of play, as well as opening the door for other social interactions and collaborations. The water table acts as a focal point for children and adults to gather in close proximity, giving them the option to work together or pursue more individual play.
With its ability to help aid in early childhood cognitive development, and early collaboration, it’s clear why sand and water play should be added to most public play spaces. Besides, when the sun is out and you’re burning up, who doesn’t love going to the park to cool down?

 

 

Scale, imagination, and innovation in modern playgrounds

When recalling our early playground memories, we remember how awe inspiring the equipment actually was, when seen from a child’s perspective. Often we look back at “the slide that was higher than a two story building” or “the bottomless sandbox” and how we begged our parents to bring us back. This obviously comes from the physically smaller size we have as children, but the impact of such a structure still stays in our mind well into adulthood. While the mythical endless slide is harder to come by these days, some modern architects are eliciting our youthful imagination in other creative ways. Whether it’s in size, scale, or creativity, these are some play structures you’ll definitely want to see.

Firstly, check out the scale that’s implied in the “Monster’s Footprints” structure by MAD architects in Shenzhen, China. When viewed from a higher level, it forces you to imagine that a 25 story monster had recently strolled by.  The undulating ground in the “foot print” re creates the contours of the mythical beast, almost creating an alien like landscape.

A very similar whimsical landscape that you might remember from our previous blog posts is that at the Playa Vista central park playground. With its larger scale and sleek play structures dotted around, the space almost feels like a real life cartoon playscape.

Tom Otterness is another artist/designer that’s combing both the ideas of childhood whimsy and large scale character playgrounds. His large scale brass playground structures are shaped like seated thirty foot characters, that children are encouraged to climb all over. With ladders on the arms and slides on his legs, it’s hard not to think of a real life version of Gulliver’s Travels.

While innovative and creative design clearly knows no limits, there are still awe inspiring slides being made. We recently installed this 25 foot tube slide in an office building in Richmond, VA. Creating a fun way to quickly get to the bottom floor of the office, it brings back that childhood joy to the working adult.

This not only shows that the sense of whimsy and amusement a playground can provide stays with us well into adulthood, but that it can be incorporate into contemporary design as well!

 

Note: We play enthusiasts enjoy seeing and sharing different playground designs from around the world, but are by no means commenting on whether or not they meet the American playground safety standards.

Monster footprints: http://www.i-mad.com/?go/#artexh_details?wtid=0&id=5

Tom Otterness: http://www.tomostudio.com/exhibitions_silver.html

 

Honoring Other Important Play Enthusiasts: Friedrich Froebel by Laura

I’m always surprised when educators, especially those of young children, are not familiar with the work of Friedrich Froebel. Froebel is the “father” of the kindergarten concept.

Froebel studied the natural sciences as well as architecture and had a profound understanding of the interconnectedness between the two disciplines. Under the direction of Anton Gruener, headmaster of thePestalozzianFrankfurtModelSchooland the teachings of Johann Henrich Pestalozzi, Froebel, became a teacher for young children. He was greatly influenced by Pestalozzi’s respect for young children and valued the way that Pestalozzi created an emotionally secure environment to cultivate a child’s learning.

In 1837, Froebel, created the first “garden of children” or “kindergarten” based upon the philosophy that children would learn and develop in their own way through self-guided activities and play. Froebel’s approach was to foster a child’s self actualization and awareness by facilitating the child to discover the relationships between geometric forms and shapes, architecture and even mathematics in the natural world around them.  Specifically he did this with a combination of organized block play (“Gift play”), arts and crafts with different types of materials (“Occupations”), free play, along with songs and stories.

Gift Play:

The Gifts (sets of blocks) were developed for children to play with and to experience the concept of many parts making a whole and visa versa. Each block set was made up of small blocks making up one large cube. This was conceptualized every time the child took out and put away the gift: the blocks were stored in a wooden box with a sliding lid; the children start by turning the box onto the table and carefully sliding the lid out and then lifting up the box. The child is left with the entire cube structure in tact. At that point he or she may take each block down and create something new. If the child wants to change or create a new structure then he or she must transform the previous structure and not just knock the old one down; they learn to be resourceful and to think creatively.

When it is time to put the blocks away the child rebuilds the cube with all of the pieces on top of the lid and then carefully covers the cube with the wooden box; he/she flips over the box and slides the lid back into place.

Gift 4: 8 oblong blocks.  Gift 4 follows gift 3 which is 8 cubes.

Turn over the box and slide out the lid.

The full cube is intact. The box and lid are usually stored under the seat until it is time to put the gift away.

This is an example of a child’s creation with the blocks.  The story, which she will share with the group, is about a girl walking through the forest which the blocks represent.

Time to put the blocks away; stack them onto the lid.

The box and/or hands may be used to ensure that the blocks are flush so that it is easy to place the box over top of them -this becomes especially important in the later gifts which comprise of many more blocks including triangular blocks in gift 5.

Slide the box over the blocks and turn over the box while holding on to the lid.

I am sure it was Froebel’s intent that the routine of taking out and putting back the blocks as described would instill a sense of responsibility and respect for the materials given to the child.  This respect and understanding of how to treat what has been given to them “the gifts”, shapes their view and the way they treat nature and others around them. This is also due in part to the way that the gifts are presented to the child as “a representation of the natural world around them”.  This is all so clear to me as an adult as I look upon my own experience as a child, when I attended a Froebel School, in Mississauga, ON, Canada, and played with the gifts on a regular basis.

In the next blog posts I will talk more about gift play and other type of play advocated by Friedrich Froebel. Stay tuned.

Pushing the Envelope of Playground Design with Risk & Challenge by JC Boushh

In today’s age of tech savvy children playground designers are constantly designing new and innovative play components to attract today’s wired-child to the playground. This approach to new and innovative designs many times comes into conflict with society’s preoccupation with over protecting children from life’s bumps and bruises. As children continuously seek new ways to challenge themselves beyond the virtual world of video games they need the elements of developmentally appropriate challenges and calculated risks in order to allow them the opportunity to test their limits, be creative and imaginative in order to solve problems, and provide them with opportunities for learning and correcting mistakes.

A research report issued by the Health and Safety Executive and Play England is beginning to address the issue of too-safe playgrounds and the developmental benefits associated with risk and challenge within the playground environment. The report entitled Managing Risk in Play Provision indicates that it is perfectly normal and developmentally appropriate for children to get slight injuries while playing on playgrounds and that part of play is grazed and skinned knees. Adults want playgrounds to be safe, but there has to be an element of risk and challenge associated with it otherwise the playground is boring and uncreative.

Many parents today are over-anxious about their child becoming injured during play, and in response many public facilities have dummied down their playgrounds in response. The effect is that children have no interest in playing on many of today’s playgrounds or those that have played on them once have never returned.

“Research from our Playday campaign shows that nearly half (47%) of adults think it is unsafe for children to play outside without an adult, 49% of parents do not let their children play outside without an adult,  and over a third (37%) worry that their neighbors will judge them if they let their children play outside unsupervised.” (Play England)

Parents and caregivers perception of free-play and minor injuries associated with play are key to changing the trend of dummied-downed playgrounds. When we become overly concerned with eliminating every potential bump or bruise on the playground, we also eliminate the potential for healthy lifelong developmental skills. Our ability to survive and thrive is based on our ability to overcome risk, adapt to problems, and conquer challenges. Ultimately, life is a risky business.Mike Conway of Play England states;

“(the) play area is as safe as reasonably possible and protects against major injuries, but if children can benefit from challenges like climbing, running or trying new skills that it allows for minor injuries”.  (Telegraph)

The current trend that has emerged with standard playground design is that playgrounds have become dull and boring with no opportunities for risk-taking and challenge. In response to this, current approaches to playground equipment design and safety stem from the view that play equipment should be as safe as necessary not as safe as possible to allow children to engage in experiences that offer challenge and excitement.Challenging playground equipment that provides for safe risk-taking helps build resilience, persistence, and problem solving skills that enable children to become confident, creative, and independent thinkers who are capable of making appropriate decisions and take responsibility for their own actions. To achieve this, children need to engage in risk-taking in a safe environment where risks are suitably managed. Sir Digby Jones, HTI President remarks;

“If we never took a risk our children would not learn to walk, climb stairs, ride a bicycle or swim; businesses would not develop innovative new products, move into new markets and create wealth for all: scientists would not experiment and discover; we would not have great art, literature, music and architecture”.(Jones)

Risk during free-play is a part of child development and affords children the opportunity to challenge their individual limits in an environment that factors in their developmental growth and age. As England moves closer to many other European perceptions of providing challenge and safe risk within children’s play environments perhaps it is time for the United States to become more tolerant to developmentally appropriate challenges and calculated risks that have the potential for slight injuries. Our current guidelines focus so much on eliminating every possibility of injuries on the playground that it has forced many manufactures to consider litigation potential before they consider developmentally appropriate design. This thinking and fear of even the slightest injury has far-reaching consequences for today’s children and future adults in that it deprives them of the ability to be creative, innovative, problem-solvers, risk-takers, and independent healthy adults.

Play is risky, but if it wasn’t filled with some element of risk and challenge it would be boring and unattractive to children and the consequences are hyper-protected and sedentary children and that ultimately cheats them of valuable childhood experiences.

References:

Jones, Sir Digby (2007) Releasing the Potential for Children to take Risks and Innovate.Cotton Wool Kids Issues Paper 7

Play England. “Grazed knees beat cotton wool culture.” 10 October 2010. Web.5 December 2010.

Telegragh, The. “Children ‘learn from cut knees’.” 8 October 2010. Web.  5 December 2010

JC Boushh is a recognized expert in the field of playground safety, play environment design, and child development. He has lectured worldwide as well as authored numerous articles on playground safety, developmental benefits of play, and has a deep commitment to preserving all children’s right to play. He is the head designer for Design for Play, and serves as an outdoor environment project manager, play consultant specializing in designing for children’s developmental needs through play, and a third-party playground inspector. He can be reached at www.jcboushhconsulting.com

Troll Forest Balacing Beam

On our outing into the troll forest in Jaerna, a small town just south of Stockholm, my grandchildren found this amazing beam. It was a very long fallen tree that was still rooted on one side. The end of the tree was just high enough for the children to climb up to it. Together they made it sway and tried to balance on it at the same time. I think that I will develop this idea so that it can become a very interesting piece of playground equipment.