Yesterday I took our children to the new playground in town.
Several months ago the council had the old one ripped out in order to re-vamp the foreshore in our town, which is where the playground is situated.
It has taken a very long time for this new playground to be installed and I am told it is not quite completed so there may be an opportunity for more older children equipment, but I doubt it.
Now I am a huge fan of playgrounds the one thing I have noticed over the years, as we have moved to different towns and seen different playgrounds and the taking out of old stuff to be replaced with newer and safer playground equipment is the appalling lack of consideration given to older children and their enjoyment of playground equipment.
It seems to me that once children reach about the age of 10 maybe that the designers of these playgrounds thinks that older children are not interested in playing anymore.
Well I am here to tell you that that just isn't so!
Our older children have always loved playing on equipment and love nothing more than 'invading' the play space and taking over. I have no idea how many times other children have wanted to join in with our children as they run around and play different games.
The only concession it seems that designers concede for older children is the proverbial skate park that is usually situated near the playground. Now I know children like to skate and roller blade but I still don't think that this is the type of play most children would like to participate in.
The good old days of hurdy gurdy's and whirly things did make a semi comeback into this new play playground, like the hurdy gurdy below our boys are on. It is a very small one and not very high, I guess to eliminate serious falls and hence suing the council for injury.
Our older children still remember the few remnant pieces of old big 'cool ' equipment with much excitement and I have fond memories of riding the large hurdy gurdy, the banks of swings that went extremely high and the very high slides.
The emphasis on the baby playground while wonderful for little Arwen and safety fenced in, which is of course a blessing for these little ones I think should not exclude the older kids from a great way to run off energy.
This larger climbing frame seems to be the one concession for older children and I suppose our 16 year old and older would be considered too old for it, if there where littler children around.
Needless to say our children have over the years designed a very cool playground that they would love to make for our own home play space. Unfortunately we have not been able to achieve this for various reasons, however I have been giving it serious thought over the last few weeks along with the more natural gardening and mud kitchen ideas to incorporate into it.
This has come about more so I think to try to deal with our sensory seeking child who just needs to have more time and energy used up outside.
I am actually thinking I might do another post on the
IDEAL PLAYGROUND form our family's point of view soon.
Blessings to you and your homes,
Blessings to you and your homes,
4 comments:
It looks like you all had a fabulous time.
Blessings to you
Wow, that playground equipment is so cool...minus that fact that it doesn't quite meet the needs of the older children. But, that being said, I have never seen equipment like that here in the states (except for the swings and slide).
I wanna play!
I would love to see your post on your family's ideal playground. I know what you mean about the older kids. They still LOVE to play!
There is a similar park to this in Coffs Harbour and when we stumbled across it last year by accident and went in to play, there were more teenagers there than anyone else!
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