HEAD START CENTER DESIGN GUIDE

6.5 Types of Outdoor Play Areas

6.5.1 Sand and Water Play

Sand and water play facilities allow children to learn concepts, pretend, and to project their ideas. Facilities can enhance children's make-believe, play, and social skills. Sand and water play should be accessible to children.

Best practice indicates that sand and water tables should have play surfaces at children's height, allowing them to dip out a portion of sand or water onto a stable surface. It is wise to allow play space and storage for props such as spoons, shovels, pails, plastic vehicles and animals, containers, and buckets. These props can add to the quality of play experiences.

The need for a child-scaled drinking fountain on the playground should be determined during design. In particularly warm areas, there will be a greater need for water fountains. In addition, it is wise to provide a hose bib connection for water play and for filling wading pools accessible from the circulation path. It is also desirable to emphasize the source of the water through the design, since it is such an important part of the play yard.

6.5.2 Dramatic Play

Dramatic play is the most dynamic activity in the play yard, since children often use many different areas of the play yard as stage settings. Ample opportunities should be provided for children to engage in role-playing and make-believe activities.

Best practice indicates that playhouse structures should have seating, adequate play areas, and storage to allow use of a wide variety of props, such as boards, scrap lumber, dress-up clothes, cooking utensils, tarpaulin, banners, signs, and other items that help ensure the high quality of dramatic play. The dramatic play area should be adjacent to and incorporate paths and parking areas for wheeled toys.

6.5.3 Large Muscle Play

Large-muscle play areas provide for the physical development of children. They should offer opportunities for climbing and riding wheeled toys, as well as running, jumping, sliding, and balancing. Fixed equipment, such as a superstructure play piece, and slides, encourage children to explore the limits of their physical abilities through varying levels of difficulty and challenge. Berms that create small hills also provide challenge and are cost effective. They also provide visual interest and a connection to nature.

The degree of difficulty, challenge, or risk should be obvious to children involved in any activity. Recognizable challenge or risk is good, but hidden or unforeseen risk is dangerous and often results in injuries. Refer to the CPSC Handbook for Public Playground Safety. Best practice indicates that the play yard should not contain:

1. Metal slides, which can burn children when they become hot.
2. Enclosed tunnel slides, which make observation difficult and can allow one climbing child above the enclosed tunnel to fall on top of another at the tunnel exit.
3. Traditional seesaws, which can result in injuries when one child unexpectedly jumps off.
4. Spring toys, which can hit a child's head as he or she walks by the relatively heavy, moving toy.
5. Swings that may cause falls.

Small berms and hills, large rocks, stumps, trees, or bushes provide settings and obstacles for children to climb over, jump on, dodge around, or hide behind. All of these can present desirable challenges. Play with wheeled toys, such as tricycles and wagons, helps develop coordination and physical strength. The large space required and the boisterous character of this play dictate that this area be situated away from quieter ones. Because local licensing has a wide range of interpretation of appropriate playground design, obtaining approval of the design concept early is important.

Play areas should be accessible to children with disabilities. This means that children with disabilities should be able to reach the play equipment to benefit from the interaction that occurs there.