School playgrounds - create a fun learning environment for everyone
Creating a top-notch schoolyard or daycare playground is essential for children’s development. Let’s face it, children spend a lot of time at daycare, school, and the playground, and it’s where they can let loose, play together, discover, and grow. Children learn valuable life skills like conflict resolution and resilience in the schoolyard. As such, it plays a crucial role in shaping children’s social, emotional, educational, and physical development.
Bringing educational learning environments outdoors
Children who don’t get enough exercise at a young age may struggle with being overweight and having underdeveloped motor skills. This puts them at a higher risk of getting chronic health issues. Socially, these children may have trouble keeping up with their peers during playtime and be left out of sports or games.
When children are in a learning environment that is both challenging and supportive, they benefit in multiple ways. Their social, emotional, cognitive, and motor skills all improve. To achieve this, school playground equipment should focus on play values rather than just play functions.
Optimal learning environment
- Safety first: Make sure the playground is safe for children and follows proper safety standards.
- Accessibility for all: Make sure the entire outdoor area is easily accessible for all learners. This promotes equality and inclusion.
- Adaptability is key: Make sure the outdoor space can be used flexibly and is adaptable to different activities.
- Increase curiosity: Include interesting elements such as gardens, natural playground equipment like large rocks, or other fun features.
- Comfortable and inviting: Provide chairs, tables, and shade so pupils can feel comfortable between active sessions.
Children playing in Lappste Cubic
Memo play pillars offer endless fun while learning new things!
Education and Interactive Play
Exercise promotes new brain cell growth, allowing children to grasp and retain information more effectively. These developments can be observed in both traditional and interactive play equipment.
However, there are a few advantages to interactive devices:
- Fun interactive games that remain challenging
- Various difficulty levels for all grades
- Fun, exercise, and learning in one playset
- Inclusive for all ages and abilities!
Lappset offers a variety of ready-made concepts for inspiring outdoor classrooms that can be tailored to specific needs and areas. The Lappset Memo Outdoor Classroom concept takes things to the next level by incorporating interactive learning equipment.
Motoric tracks and activity towers
Motoric tracks and activity towers provide endless play (=pleasurable exercise!), encouraging children to do lap after lap. The skill to cross the assumed center line of the body is a prerequisite for a child to learn how to read and write. This allows a child to create handedness and the ability to perform everyday activities such as cutting with scissors. That’s why climbing is the most effective activity during school breaks.
But motoric tracks aren’t just for kids! With their cool and edgy designs, they’re street credible enough to appeal to teenagers as well. The benefits of climbing structures go way beyond just having fun – they can also help prepare children for facing challenges in real life. By testing their abilities and skills on a climbing structure, they naturally learn how to avoid potential hazards and danger. Plus, it's a great way to build confidence and stay safe!
Children balancing and climbing on the school playground
Children during music therapy at Tyltylcenter De Witte Vogel ‘The White Bird’ – The Hague, The Netherlands
Inclusion offers possibilities for everyone
Incorporating inclusive practices in school playgrounds can lead to a more equitable and cooperative learning atmosphere for all students. This helps to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and respected. Inclusive practices can help create a sense of belonging and community in the school playground and beyond by breaking down arbitrary divisions between different learners.
Sometimes even small adjustments to ‘normal’ playground equipment are enough. Having fun is important to us. If you experience pleasure, then you feel safe and wanted. From this safe feeling, you push the boundaries, and opportunities become visible. Lappset Interactive playsets are accessible, non-stigmatizing, challenging, and exciting for all ages and abilities. Our approach is based on the belief that all children deserve the chance to play and learn together on school breaks and during lessons without being segregated into separate groups.
Nature play in the schoolyard
Incorporating nature into school playgrounds provides a sense of challenge and adventure for children. Our playground equipment is expertly designed to blend with the environment, using organic shapes like tree leaves and branches. Not only is it resilient, but with its eco-friendly carbon footprint, you can rest assured that these products contribute to the preservation of the environment for generations to come!
Also important to know: our wooden playground equipment does not have any cracks. Only the best parts of the tree are used in the play equipment. We can also deliver all our wooden playground equipment and fitness equipment non-painted.
Cloxx parkour schoolyard in Breda, The Netherlands
Parkour for schoolyards
Parkour is proving to be very successful in education. The exercise intensity and the movement variation in a parkour area are unprecedentedly high. Unlike conventional sports, parkour is not competitive. Rather the challenge lies in improving one’s abilities. This is a strength, as every child moves at their level and pushes their limits.
The teacher avoids telling children how to perform a parkour exercise but rather allows them to discover it themselves. It has been scientifically proven that children develop at lightning speed if there is no standard but if they can explore and push their limits themselves. It is the teacher’s responsibility to create a challenging environment for self-discovery and self-improvement
Sports and games
Promoting a healthy lifestyle is gaining traction in schools. As a result, more attention is now being paid to sports and exercise. Outdoor spaces can quickly fill up with children competing for their turn on the playground equipment or the sports field. This is why it's important to maximize every square inch of outdoor space and ensure everyone enjoys outdoor sports, no matter how small the area is.
Sporty additions such as multi-functional or interactive sports arenas provide even more activity in the schoolyard. Lappset’s sports arenas have been developed in line with current trends. Scarce outdoor space, the importance of a healthy lifestyle, meeting in the schoolyard, and playing together can all be incorporated into multi-functional sports arenas. When adding nets, baskets, or goals (also interactive) to arenas, other sports besides soccer can be played on the field, such as handball, hockey, tennis, or volleyball. This efficient utilization of outdoor space ensures everyone gets ample outdoor playtime and a chance to participate in outdoor sports.
The Toro Interactive sports arena is a colorful multipurpose playground
Child playing on DASH
Other outdoor exercise equipment for schoolyards
Wouldn't it be great to offer outdoor gym equipment for the children in school and the wider community? There's no better way to get everyone out of the house, active, and having fun than with Lappset's outdoor sports equipment ranges! With options suitable for schoolyards, kids would never run out of activities during recess or lunch. And when school ends, parents and members of the wider community could join in as well! Together, they could work out, build relationships and create a stronger sense of belonging by using the same outdoor gym after school hours. With sports equipment like this in their arsenal, no one would waste any more time inside - because there's always something enjoyable that can be done outside!
Playing and learning go hand in hand"Playing promotes learning by stimulating the entire body and leaving a memory of the learning experience in the nervous system. The physical activity involved in playing boosts memory and teaches creative thinking."
- Signe Siklander
Download playground checklist
Are you looking to design a playground that sparks joy and adventure in the hearts of children?
Our team of experts has compiled a comprehensive checklist to help you create a safe, stimulating, and imaginative playground.