Playground Planning: Choosing Equipment for Skill Development

Introduction

Creating a world-class playscape can often feel like a monumental task, but it is also an exciting journey, particularly when it comes to selecting the ideal play equipment for your playground. After completing the initial planning steps such as the community needs assessment, site analysis, and budget allocation, it is time to dive into the fun part of the playground planning process: choosing the right equipment.

With a wide array of equipment options to choose from, it is essential to carefully weigh multiple factors to ensure your playground caters to the expected needs of its visitors. The selected equipment must create a safe and age-appropriate environment for children to enjoy and foster developmental skills that will shape their future.

As discussed in our blog “Design Considerations When Planning Your Playground”, to create a safe play environment tailored to your audience, it is crucial to consider the age groups of your visitors. For preschoolers, focus on age-appropriate equipment like ground-level sensory activities, crawl spaces, compact slides, and fine motor skill-enhancing panels. For elementary school children (ages 5-12), opt for challenging yet safe structures such as towering play equipment, age-suited activity panels, swings, and climbing walls. In family neighborhoods with children of varying ages, consider installing separate play structures for each age group. Clear signage and a buffer zone between the structures ensure age-appropriate play while reducing the risk of accidents.

Additionally, enhancing the play experience requires a level of challenge and risk that matches the age range of your playground users. This is achieved with the intentional inclusion of elements and activities that allow children to engage in activities with an element of challenge, uncertainty, and perceived risk. These elements are designed to promote physical, cognitive, and emotional development by encouraging children to step out of their comfort zones and explore their limits in a safe and controlled environment. Maintaining children's interest and engagement relies on offering equipment that continually pushes and challenges their skills, preventing boredom and keeping them interacting with your playscape. For more information on how to balance safety and challenges access our whitepaper “Balancing Safety and Challenge in Playground Design” in our resource library.

Keeping the age and level of risk in mind, it is now time to consider equipment with skill-building activities that support the development of your playground visitors. Well-designed playgrounds have the potential to support the health and development of the whole child—their physical health, as well as the social and cognitive skills that are so important for successful functioning later in life. It is important to note that most equipment pieces can advance multiple skills. For instance, a climbing wall enhances both cognitive and physical abilities, requiring problem-solving and physical strength. Swing sets promote sensory development, physical skills and supply cognitive benefits, by offering vestibular stimulation, body awareness, muscle tone, balance, and alertness. To optimize your budget for maximum value, include equipment that attends to multiple developmental skills.

For a deeper discussion on the power of play in child development access our white paper “Shaped by Play: The Formative Role of Play and Playgrounds” in our resource library.

Core Skill-Building Benefits of Playground Equipment

Playgrounds play a crucial role in helping children build basic developmental skills, such as cognitive, sensory, physical (motor/strength), and social/emotional skills. These skills are fundamental to a child's overall growth and development. By understanding how these skills are nurtured and which equipment enhances them, you can create sensory-rich play environments with age-appropriate developmental tools, ultimately increasing the play value of your playground. So, what are these skills, and which pieces of equipment are best suited for their development?

Cognitive Skills: Cognitive skills encompass the core abilities that the brain employs for thinking, reading, learning, remembering, reasoning, and paying attention. This category includes problem-solving, strategic thinking, planning, and language and literacy, all of which are pivotal to an individual's development. It is important to note that cognitive development is intertwined with physical and social development, and many playground activities and equipment deliver a comprehensive approach to children's growth. The key is to offer a variety of equipment that engages children's bodies and minds, encouraging them to explore, experiment, and learn in a fun and safe environment.

You can also employ the “Continuous Play” philosophy in your design to challenge children both physically and mentally as they navigate obstacles and hone their problem-solving and decision-making skills. This setup allows seamless transitions between play events, encouraging increased social interaction and skill development and enhances the playground's overall play value. Playgrounds with a high play value allow children to play in many different ways, expand, or elaborate on their own ideas and actions.

Victoria Park in Irving, Texas, pictured below, exemplifies continuous play with numerous routes throughout the structure, fostering imagination and problem-solving as children create unique pathways and reach new heights. The arrows illustrate the numerous different ways a child can move throughout the playscape, both ascending and descending the play structure.

Examples of equipment pieces that contribute to cognitive skill development:

• Climbing structures, like climbing walls and net play, offer children the chance to engage in problem-solving and decision-making. As they plan their route up or down these structures, they enhance their spatial awareness and fine-tune their decision-making skills.
• Sand and water play areas encourage sensory exploration. Children can build sandcastles or experiment with pouring and mixing water, fostering creativity and an understanding of cause and effect. These tactile experiences lay the foundation for scientific thinking.
• Musical equipment like xylophones and drums stimulate children's auditory perception and creativity as they explore sound, rhythm, and patterns. These musical experiences not only enhance cognitive skills but also introduce children to the world of art and expression.
• Balance beams and stepping stones supply a unique opportunity for children to develop their physical coordination and spatial awareness. Maintaining balance on these structures requires concentration and control – key cognitive skills.
• Educational signage and learning walls within playgrounds can spark an interest in learning. These signs may include maps, nature facts, or historical information, stimulating reading and expanding children's knowledge while they play. This could also include nature and science areas, which could feature gardens or wildlife-themed settings that introduce children to the natural world.

Sensory Development: Sensory development in children includes vision, touch, smell, taste, hearing, vestibular (balance and head positions), and proprioception (position and movement of muscles and joints). Sensory development is vital for receiving information from the environment and the body, enabling children to explore and understand the world around them, and facilitating their cognitive, social, and emotional development.

Incorporating a variety of sensory-rich equipment into a playground can be beneficial for children with sensory processing needs or sensory-seeking behaviors. These elements contribute to a well-rounded sensory experience, helping children explore and develop their sensory integration skills while having fun and engaging in play.

Examples of equipment that support sensory development:

• Outdoor instruments are highly sensory-stimulating play activities. Outdoor musical instruments such as xylophones, drums, and chimes engage the auditory and tactile senses. Children can create sounds and rhythms, enhancing their auditory perception and coordination.
• Swings provide sensory input through vestibular stimulation. Swinging back and forth helps children develop a sense of balance and spatial awareness.
• Roller tables help children to develop a “skin map” of tactile sensory receptors throughout the body. They provide kids with much needed sensory stimulation through the application of deep-muscle pressure from the steel rollers.
• Sand and water tables Sandboxes and water tables offer opportunities for tactile exploration. Children can dig, pour, mold, and engage their senses through touch and, in the case of water, sound. These activities encourage fine motor skills and sensory integration.
• Sensory walls incorporate a variety of materials like mirrors, textures, and interactive elements to stimulate visual, tactile, and auditory senses. Children can engage with these walls in creative and sensory-enhancing ways.
• Sensory play structures like the Sensory Tunnel are designed specifically for sensory development. These structures incorporate elements like texture walls, sensory pathways, and interactive sensory games.

Physical (Motor/Strength) Skills: Physical skill building refers to the development and refinement of physical abilities that involve muscle strength, coordination, balance, and motor skills. These skills are essential for a child's overall physical fitness and are crucial for their ability to perform various tasks and activities.

To support the development of physical (motor/strength) skills in children, playgrounds often incorporate a wide range of equipment and activities that encourage movement, climbing, balancing, and physical challenges. These activities help children build strength, coordination, and motor skills while having fun and staying active.

Examples of equipment pieces that contribute to physical skill development:

• Balance and coordination elements like balance beams, stepping stones, wobble elements, balancing boards and platforms, promote balance and coordination while offering tactile sensory experiences. For example, to maintain balance on a balance beam, a child’s core strength must be engaged. They can understand their body’s center of gravity and keep it in mind as they’re moving from one side of the beam to the other.
• Swinging helps children develop upper body strength and balance. It also provides vestibular stimulation, which contributes to spatial awareness and coordination.
• While climbing structures, such as climbing walls, net climbers and overhead events benefit a child’s problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, they also directly benefit a child’s motor skills and strength development. A child may be able to problem solve and decide on the best path up the wall, but they cannot physically get up the wall or across the monkey bars without having the proper strength to do so. Engaging in play with climbing structures enhances and grows a child’s upper, lower, and core body strength.
• Fitness equipment encourages children to remain physically active. Fitness stations with equipment like elliptical machines, chest/arm presses, leg lifts, and stepping machines encourage physical fitness and strength development. Playground fitness equipment designed to promote healthy activities and reinforce healthy choices is invaluable to schools and communities.
• Crawling through tunnels, helps children work on their gross motor skills, including crawling, climbing, and exploring spatial relationships.
• Motion equipment like spinners, see-saws, merry-go-rounds and zip lines promote balance and coordination as children work together to push and spin the platform. They build upper body strength as they hold on during the movement. Equipment that requires teamwork and coordination to move aids in the development of both social and physical skills.

Social/Emotional Skills: Social-emotional skills are crucial for forming connections and empathetic relationships with others. These skills empower children to understand, experience, express, and manage their emotions, thereby fostering meaningful relationships with others. Playgrounds offer an ideal setting for the organic development of these skills, as children naturally engage socially during play. As children interact on the playground, they are not only building positive relationships but are also developing empathy and learning conflict resolution skills, which builds their self-confidence, and bolsters their resilience.

Examples of equipment pieces that support social/emotional development skills:

• Equipment that accommodates multiple children, such as seesaws, the Sway Fun® Glider, the We-Go-Swing® and the We-Go-Round® encourages social interaction and cooperation. Children learn to take turns, negotiate, and collaborate while using this equipment.
• Enclosed spaces like tunnels, Cozy Domes®, or the new Fox Den™ Hangouts, give children a place to engage in play by themselves or a quiet space to take a break when things get overwhelming.
• Imaginative play structures, such as playhouses, themed play areas, and interactive play panels invite children to engage in imaginative play, role-playing, and storytelling, contributing to the development of their social and emotional intelligence.
• Community gathering spaces with picnic areas, benches, and shaded spots provide settings for socialization and emotional connections. Families and friends can gather in these spaces and enjoy shared play activities.
• Themed play areas, whether related to history, science, or literature, create engaging environments that foster both learning and imaginative play. These spaces encourage children to explore new subjects and use their imagination. For instance, consider a firefighter-themed playscape, like Harold K. Bessire Park featured below, where visiting children can readily employ their imaginations. From castles and pirate ships to jungles and outer space, the themed playground possibilities are endless and limited only by your imagination!

Conclusion

Selecting the equipment for your playground is an exhilarating task but demands a thoughtful approach. Beyond ensuring the safety of your visitors with age-appropriate equipment, focus on integrating skill-building activities. Moreover, embracing elements of challenge and risk suitable for each age group adds excitement and encourages growth.

The skill-building benefits of playground equipment are all vital for a child's growth and development. The integration of these developmental skills into your playground not only increases its play value but creates a space that encourages learning, creativity, and meaningful interactions among children. Ultimately, the selection of appropriate equipment and the design of your playground are pivotal in providing a safe, engaging, and enriching place for children to learn, explore, and grow.

If you find yourself grappling with the decision-making process for your playground equipment, don't hesitate to reach out to a Whirlix Design representative. Our team of experts are more than happy to guide you through the playground equipment selection process.