HEAD START CENTER DESIGN GUIDE

6.6 Play Yards for Different Age Groups

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's Handbook for Public Playground Safety includes a complete listing of appropriate standards and hazards. Designers should refer to this reference.

6.6.1 Infant Outdoor Play Areas

Play areas for infants require special design considerations. Best practice indicates that separate spaces for infants should be near toddler play areas, providing visual and audible connections and limited physical contact. Ideally, infant play areas should be exposed to the natural environment, though shielded from the extremes of wind and sun.

Infant play area surfaces should consist of soft, resilient materials that protect crawling children and provide a comfortable surface on which they can sit. Soft surfaces should have different textures and colors that are not loud, but denote changes in activities and challenges.

Developmentally appropriate challenges should be situated within bounded areas, or behind slight barriers requiring mastery before the child may venture into the next area. These challenges could take the form of crawling spaces with slight inclines, low, easy- to-cross barriers or berms, pull-up bars, and low platforms and slides. There should be a surface hard enough to allow the use of wheeled and push toys.

6.6.2 Toddler Outdoor Play Areas

Toddlers should have play areas for walking, jumping, climbing, running, drawing, painting, block play, group play, sorting, and exploring. The play environment should allow for a wide range of movement and stimulate the senses through the novelty and variety of challenges. Simple, versatile climbing equipment is more appropriate for toddlers than scaled-down versions of older children's play structures. Toddlers crave and enjoy semienclosed spaces, such as small playhouses or climb-through tunnels. They also enjoy small slides. Toddlers seek out experiences with motion or movement.

Best practice indicates that all play structures in toddler areas must be surrounded by a resilient surface. A variety of surfaces and materials should be provided including sand and dirt, pavement, and open grassy areas where toddlers can use an abundance of play objects. When combined with toys, sand becomes a major resource for toddler play. There also should be a hard surface area and paths to support play with toys on wheels. (Refer to Section 6.7).

6.6.3 Pre-School Outdoor Play Areas

Play areas for pre-school children should support dramatic, constructive, and creative play, active and quiet play, sand and water play, offering opportunities to explore nature. Pre-school children regularly interact, socialize, discuss, and negotiate. At this age, they begin to engage in socio-dramatic play. Running, jumping, climbing, and swinging are important and are often pursued in a make-believe setting.

Best practice indicates that a large, open-ended play structure offering many activities and designed to lend itself to dramatic play should be provided. There should be elements such as playhouses, stages, and props that encourage dramatic play. These elements should be positioned within the play area to allow the dramatic play to spill out and flow into other spaces.

Pathways for wheeled toys also provide circulation and allow the play experience to flow through the play areas. Facilities for play with sand and water should be included and placed adjacent to one another allowing these activities to intermingle. Materials for creative play, such as musical devices, painting materials, chalkboards, construction materials, and blocks, should be included. If there is a covered porch, it may be ideal for painting and drawing.

Generally, for best large muscle activity in a group care setting, the children should be moving, not the equipment. Though tire swings are appropriate, standard swings are too problematic to warrant their inclusion.