Create your Christmas wish list – the ultimate playground

18/12/23

Christmas is fast approaching, and children everywhere will be writing lists for presents. It shouldn’t just be children enjoying writing lists. It’s the time of year to look at improving your school’s outdoor areas or play equipment ready for the New Year. Perhaps in 2024 the children could be swinging from post to post on a trim trail, or climbing as high as they can on a tower or having fun hiding away in a den. Let’s look at some of the many options available for playground improvements.

Top of the Christmas list, Trim Trails

A great addition to any playground and always at the top of our Christmas list, is a trim trail or balance beam. A trim trail consists of a series of obstacles to tackle before moving onto the next. Each piece of equipment utilises a different skill to help develop and improve confidence.

A popular addition to any playground, trim trails are designed in a way where a child can start at any point they wish and make their way around to complete the whole course. All the obstacles have their own challenges and will require different parts of the body to be used, offering a variety of achievable challenges. Let your imagination take over when designing; you can mix and match the trim trial equipment, which includes:

• Balance beams; a popular piece, they not only workout the leg muscles but also improve flexibility, coordination, and balance
• Drop ropes traverse: short ropes hanging from a wooden frame with a balancing beam to walk along as you hold onto the ropes. Helps develop physical strength and improves a child’s balancing and co-ordination skills
• Hanging rope crossing: children can pretend they are in the jungle as they swing across the vines at the same time as balancing on the foot rope. It features hand grips on the rope ends. This is great for abdominal stretches and arm strength exercises
• Log ladder and climbing frame: made from wood, the log ladder makes a triangle shape, up and down. A traditional climbing item often seen in assault courses, it’s great for challenging younger children
• Low up and over net frame, combining steel core ropes and sanded timber: this is an interactive challenge for the children as the net moves around as more join in
• Monkey bars; this is the trim trail favourite for those capable of holding themselves up by their hands with adequate upper body strength
• Rolling log crossing: one of the more challenging pieces, children will return again and again to this until they have mastered it.

 Not forgetting, towers of fun!

Climbing up high is a fun activity for children, especially if the climb up comprises slides, swings, climbing walls, nets, ramps and steps, tunnels, peek-a-boo walls, and more.

A playground tower comes in many different sizes and shapes and is guaranteed to be high on the wishlist of playground equipment. Providing an endless combination of features, playground towers can be fully customisable, based on the playground size and requirements, ranging from compact units to larger elaborate constructions to allow multiple children to play at a time.

Towers can also follow a fun design, like a fairytale castle, woodland fortress or pirate ship, allowing children to gain inspiration for creative play from the theme. Or the playground tower can be styled to be in keeping with the rest of the play area, remaining timeless in its design, and letting children’s imaginations run wild.

The hide-out makes the list

A playhouse helps a child to use their imagination. It encourages creative play and enhances early education. Children enjoy mimicking through play what they see at home; they will play families, role play, clean and cook in the kitchen and sleep in the bedrooms. It’s a group activity where all children will play together and help them to bond and play nicely in a group. You can be as creative as you like when designing a den. You might want to add a mud kitchen to accompany the den too.

Here at Ace Play Limited, we specialise in creating stimulating, engaging, and challenging educational environments for primary schools and day nurseries throughout the UK. Outdoor play is now a major part of the school curriculum and using our wealth of experience, we can develop an interactive playground setting that links with your learning topics and targets. We offer a free consultation during which we will discuss the vast range of options available to you. We also provide a high level of aftercare, should it be required.

We also offer a range of essential inspection, maintenance, repair and refurbishment services for Housing Associations, schools, commercial play areas and Council parks. Essential repairs and refurbishment not only extend the life of your most popular pieces of play equipment, but also postpone the need for costly replacement and ensures equipment is safe for children to use. Contact us to find out more. https://www.aceplay.co.uk/contact/