Creating Spaces Kids Love
By: Vicki L. Stoecklin

When adults are outdoors, they admire a healthy lawn, a nicely tended vegetable garden, and beds of beautiful flowers. When children are outdoors, they are crawling under bushes, digging in dirt, damming streams, and climbing anywhere their legs and sense of adventure will take them. This is why outdoor areas designed by adults often fail to delight their intended audience.

When we give children what they want, as opposed to what adults think they want, those outdoor play areas may look different than the traditional playground. Children want areas filled with nature--from plants, trees, flowers, water, animals and insects. They want different things to do and developmentally appropriate learning environments that hold their attention for hours.

Getting Beyond Traditional Design
Most of today's adults spent recess on playgrounds that were covered with asphalt and studded with play equipment like swings, jungle gyms and slides that built their gross motor skills. When it comes to designing playgrounds for today's children, that's what we automatically picture.

Early childhood experts know that children learn best through free play and discovery. Children's free play typically is pleasurable, self-motivated, imaginative, non-goal directed, spontaneous, active and free of rules imposed by adults. Quality play involves the whole child: gross motor, fine motor, senses, emotion, intellect, individual growth and social interaction.

Childhood of Imprisonment
The world once offered thousands of kinds of free play to children. They once had access to the world at large, whether it was the sidewalks, streets, alleys, vacant lots and parks of the inner city or the fields, forest, streams and yards of suburbia and the rural countryside. Children could play, explore and interact with the natural world with little or no restrictions or supervision.

Today, the lives of children are more structured and supervised, and their physical boundaries have shrunk. Concerns for safety, an increase in latchkey children, and an overabundance of scheduled activities keep children from the joys of free play.

When children do have free time, it's often spent inside in front of the television or computers. For some children, that's because their neighborhood, apartment complex or house has no outdoor play spaces. With budgets for city and state governments slashed, public parks and outdoor playgrounds have deteriorated and been abandoned. Childhood and outdoor play are no longer synonymous.

Today, many children lead what one play expert calls a childhood of imprisonment. This makes playgrounds at schools especially important, as they are often the only outdoor activities that children experience.

Nurturing a Love of Nature
Psychologists have found that humans are genetically programmed by evolution with an affinity for the natural outdoors. They call this love of the outdoors biophilia. It makes sense, considering that for more than 99 percent of human history, people lived in hunter-gatherer bands totally involved in nature. Today's urban societies, in relative terms, have been around scarcely more than the blink of an eye.

Numerous studies of outdoor experiences have shown that natural outdoor environments have an impact on humans. They reduce stress and create a feeling of well-being. And small children consistently prefer the natural landscape over built environments.

But not all children have the chance to explore the natural world, and they risk developing an aversion to nature. This impulse, called biophobia, can make them uncomfortable in natural places and likely to regard nature as nothing more than a disposable resource.

There is much evidence that concern for the environment is based on an affection for nature that only develops when children have unsupervised, unregulated contact with it. It is children's developmental tendency to empathize with the natural world. To nurture that tendency, children need free access to a natural area in which they can spend an extended amount of time.

What Nature Gives to Children
The natural world is essential to the emotional health of children. Studies show that early experiences with the natural world are linked with the development of imagination and the sense of wonder, and wonder is an important motivator for life-long learning. And, just as children need positive adult contact and a sense of connection to the wider human community, they also need positive contact with nature and the chance for solitude and the sense of wonder that nature offers. Children, when they play in nature, are more likely to have positive feelings about each other and their surroundings.

What nature gives to children is different in quality from what they receive from indoor environments. The sensory experiences are different, and they have a freedom to run and shout and get messy--things that are frowned on indoors. Natural environments have three qualities that appeal to children when they play. They have unending diversity, they are not created by adults, and they have a feeling of timelessness in that landscapes, trees and rivers described in fairy tales and myths still exist today.

Children experience nature differently than adults. Adults view nature as the backdrop to what they are doing. Children experience nature not as a background for events, but as a stimulator and experiential component of their activities.

It's all about sensory experiences; children judge nature by how they can interact with it rather than by how it looks. And all the equipment and indoor instructional materials produced by the best educators in the world can't substitute for how it feels to a child to build a trench in the sand or squish mud between her toes. And they cannot replace the sensory moment when a child's attention is captured by the sparkle of sunlight through leaves, the sight of butterflies or a colony of ants, or the infinite space in an iris flower.

Designing Outdoor Spaces
The goal of designing children's outdoor environments is to use the landscape and vegetation as the play setting and nature as much as possible as the play materials. The natural environment needs to read as a children's place, a world separate from adults that responds to a child's own sense of place and time.

We call places like this discovery play gardens to distinguish them from traditional playgrounds. Adventure play gardens, which can also include traditional play equipment, also have spaces that are informal and naturalistic.

Again, it's important to take our lead from children and to recognize how the adult point of view is different. Adults prefer manicured lawns and tidy, neat, uncluttered landscapes. Children, on the other hand, find beauty in wildness, so discovery play gardens should provide that, along with openness, diversity and opportunities for manipulation, exploration and experimentation. Children value un-manicured places and the adventure and mystery of hiding places and wild, spacious, uneven areas. They also appreciate animals, creatures in ponds, and other living things, as well as different levels and nooks and crannies, and places that provide shelter, shade, privacy and views.

A discovery play garden requires a lot of gear to make it work, such as elements like sand, water, props and naturally found objects that allow children to control and manipulate the environment. The structures in play gardens, as much as possible, should be made of natural materials such as logs, stumps and boulders and should use the landscape in natural ways with berms and mounds.

Good use of plants is also vital to a discovery play garden. Vegetation can create a special feel that separates one play area from another, like putting interactive water play in a bog or stream habitat. And incorporating local vegetation and settings help children appreciate their community's environment.

Outdoor play areas should flow from one area to the next, be as open-ended and simple as possible, encourage children to use their imaginations, have continuity and be perceived by the children as their own, rather than adult, spaces. It is also important to integrate the outdoors with the indoor classroom with one sense of place and identity, so the transition between the two will be almost seamless and so that the outdoor space becomes part of the classroom rather than a retreat from it.

A New Way of Designing Outdoor Play Areas
Discovery play gardens don't cost any more to build than traditional playgrounds. Where the money is spent is very different, however--landscaping and creating play areas using natural materials. And, because they require specialized design skills, a higher percentage of the budget should be spent for professional design services.

New kinds of outdoor play, while they don't require more money, do require more involvement from the people who will play in and care for the discovery play garden. Having children, teachers, parents and maintenance staff participate in the design process is essential. Involving children will assure that they feel the garden is their special place.

Involving teachers assures they'll feel ownership and use the discovery play garden as an outdoor classroom. Involving parents assures their support and shows them how the natural space and often messy play supports their child's development. Involving maintenance staff assures that they will provide the support and assistance needed.

Discovery play gardens offer children chances to manipulate the environment and explore, to feel wonder and to pretend, to interact with nature, animals and insects, and other children. They are environments that encourage children's rich and complex play and greatly expand the learning opportunities of traditional playgrounds. Children's discovery play gardens are places where children can reclaim the magic that is their birthright--the ability to learn in a natural environment through exploration, discovery, and the power of their own imaginations.

Vicki L. Stoecklin is the education and child development director with White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, which specializes in design and consulting for children’s environments.

Product Roundup

Wiggle n' Wave Play System by Kay Park
Wiggle n' Wave Play System by Kay Park is a unique cross between a balance beam and a teeter-totter, but with a twist. It is made of 12-gauge steel with all-weather PVC coating and high-tech plymer mounting. It doesn’t have hinges, springs or pinch points. It is safe and fun for one to 20 kids at a time, which gives great play value. The movement of the children makes a “flow-motion” effect.  Just one of many outdoor recreation products by Kay Park, it comes in a variety of mix and match colors. 
www.kaypark.com


Child Shapers from Childforms
Childforms is able to service your playground needs in many different ways. Their Child Shapers play structures offer unparalleled play value, are easy to install, and have a limited 10-year warranty. With four different models to choose from, they have a structure within your budget or space requirements. Child Shapers come standard with skid-resistant decks, stainless steel hardware and fasteners and powder-coated steel framework. Child Shapers is surface mounted for easy installation and future relocation.
www.childforms.com


Spacenet Climbers from Landscape Structures
Spacenet climbers are three-dimensional webs made of durable Corocord cable. With its unique black fleck, Corocord is one of the highest quality cables in the industry.  Spacenet climbers, available in nine configurations, offer interactive play experiences that challenge motor skills. There is a model that’s perfect for every space and budget. The company also offers Spacenet seats to provide safe, fun perches where kids can take in the view from above. Authentic Spacenet climbers are nearly maintenance-free, and they can be repaired on site.
www.playlsi.com


Village Ice Cream Adventure by Progressive Design Playgrounds
Child Development experts agree that playgrounds should not just be about active physical play, but also about fantasy and dramatic play.  Progressive Design Playgrounds’ Village Ice Cream Adventure provides fantasy and dramatic play elements for any new or existing playground design. By adding these types of elements to a playground, a school can promote healthy cognitive development and peer relationships among children.
www.pdplay.com

Xscape from GameTime
Xscape is a new type of playground equipment that is revolutionizing the way children play. Its sleek, modern design compliments any environment, and the benefits to children are distinctive and exceptional. Add an Xscape to your play area, and watch kids as they discover its benefits. The distinctive configurations invite totally original play patterns, as kids stretch, move, and use the equipment in methods not found on traditional play equipment. Xscape features climbers, double-sided components, circuits, walls and rings. Xscape encourages movement and development opportunities.
www.gametime.com 


A+ Playgrounds
A+ Playgrounds offers quality outdoor commercial playground equipment, as well as a full line of shade covers, inflatables, water/land slides, and all types of ground cover.  Customers can choose from numerous standard structures and accessories, or A+ can custom design a structure. The company’s IPEMA-certified factory is in its seventh year of business as a worldwide leading supplier of children's indoor and outdoor commercial playground equipment. They have a skilled staff with 100 years of combined playground, design, construction and consulting experience.
www.Aplusplaygrounds.com 


Play Mart Playgrounds
Play Mart Playgrounds offer play equipment made from 100% Recycled Structural Plastic (RSP). Play Mart offers mini systems, mega systems, fitness systems for older children and adults, swings and ADA-accessible components. Play Mart’s CPSI-certified sales representatives and installers offer site inspections.
www.playmart.com 


SofSURFACES
SofTILE KrosLOCK has been engineered and thoroughly tested to meet the stringent requirements of today' s most sophisticated safety surfacing consumer. Surfaces feature an enhanced locking design to ensure that SofTILE locks in place and stays in place, increased density that achieves superior attenuation ratings, and a 10-year warranty for materials and workmanship. SofSURFACES impact attenuation performance complies with the latest standards for 10 years.  
www.sofsurfaces.com 


VeggieTales Playgrounds
VeggieTales playgrounds offer a unique look for your school playground with the characters your children know and love. Custom designs with themed VeggieTales characters in the following designs provide great street appeal: music, sports, western and traditional. VeggieTales are the creation of Big Idea, Inc., a family media company committed to providing entertaining stories that help parents teach today's children important life lessons. 
www.wowplaygrounds.com