Active Playground Equipment and An Outdoor Classroom
Our playground consultant, Marion Rolph, worked closely with The Lancaster School in Lincolnshire to create a fantastic active play area that would help inspire the children to lead a healthier lifestyle, while developing key physical skills and providing a fun and exciting area.
This stimulating and active play area consists of a variety physical challenges for the children to traverse across. The trim trail equipment focuses on overall body strength, core stability, balance and coordination. This exciting range of equipment creates the perfect area for the children to develop their key physical skills.
A Huge Outdoor Classroom
In order to provide the children with an area to relax and connect with nature, we also installed an Outdoor Classroom. This fantastic 6M timber gazebo is a lovely place to relax and socialise or for lessons to take place while the children connect with the nature surrounding them and focus on the lesson at hand.
The installation of an excellent outdoor classroom provides the perfect place for teachers to take 50 children outdoors into a sheltered environment, protected from the elements. By including a decked base inside the gazebo and an artificial grass surround, there are no muddy or wet feet coming back into the classroom.
Active Playground Equipment
The active play area includes a fantastic range of stimulating Trim Trail Equipment, each providing a different physical challenge for the children to conquer:
- Twist Net: an exciting resource that improves physical coordination, lower body strength and core stability. The Twist Net naturally rises excitement levels as children look at the equipment, attempting to work out how to cross it: it increases in difficulty as the children get closer to the end.
- Mini Balance Beam: provides an excellent introductory balance and physical coordination challenge as children cross from one challenge to the next. An amazing way to build children’s confidence for bigger challenges and an excellent rest point to promote turn taking as children stand and rest on the beam waiting for their turn.
- Net Traverse: an amazing traversing challenge that improves lower body strength, gross motor skills and coordination. The ladder style challenge develops foot placement and balance as the children balance on the rope to move across.
- Single-Sided Timber Climbing Wall: an exciting, colourful climbing wall that provides a stimulating challenge in the middle of the trail. It further develops a huge range of physical skills including upper and lower body strength, flexibility, core stability, fine and gross motor skills. The challenge can be varied as children work to cross the wall using only one colour of holds.
- Stepping Logs: offers children a varying balancing challenge as each log is at a different height, connecting the equipment together into a continuous trail. Also provides a lovely resting point for children waiting their turn on the next piece of equipment: promoting turn taking.
- Tightrope Bridge: a fantastic end to the trail which improves children’s balance, foot placement and confidence.
Working closely with Marion, the school arranged the equipment in this order so that they can cross the multiple challenges before heading back onto the playground or back to the start for another go without having to step onto the natural grass.
Arranging the equipment in this way encourages communication, language, teamwork, cooperation and turn taking to be developed through play: confidence also grows as children traverse across each challenge.
By participating in active play each day, the children are learning to lead a healthy lifestyle. The new Active Play Equipment not only improves physical skills, it also enhances children’s imaginative play as they use the equipment as a focal point for their games.
Imaginative games could include a monster chasing them across the equipment or the ground becoming lava, children’s creativity, communication, language and social skills further develop within this stimulating area.
When Marion went back to the school, she saw how much the children were enjoying their new trim trail, participating in imaginative games as they used the area.
If you’d like to develop your playground environment to enhance outdoor play and learning, Contact Us to arrange a free consultation with one of our expert designers.
