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We can design equipment for the needs of the children using it.
After safety, the most important goal of a good play environment is to provide for the variety of abilities children bring to the playground. Many equipment providers take equipment for older children and simply make it shorter for use by preschool children. That would be great if two-year-olds were simply short twelve-year-olds! They're not! We design for the particular developmental characteristics for each age group. We also plan for individual differences, creating equipment and environments that let each child find suitable challenges and variety.
Infants and Toddlers (birth to three years) must have appropriate outdoor supports. Infants are often overlooked when planning outdoor environments. Infants need a unique environment that provides close contact with adults. Caregivers must be closeat hand to stop potentially dangerous behaviors such as biting incidents or swallowing small objects. We provide a number of structures that encourage just such close contact. Infant Activity Centers (for the youngest infant and up) and Infant Mazes (for crawlers and up) provide many tactile, auditory, and visual discrimination experiences while allowing maximum supervision by adults. Soft surfaces and rounded edges, with plenty of “pull-up” opportunities, abound.
Preschoolers need more than a climber and swings. If you look at most preschool playgrounds, however, it seems many vendors are unaware of this. At GFP, we know preschoolers need to develop physical skills, but they also need opportunities to play creatively, to use their imaginations, to build language through play, to develop concepts through direct experiences and to explore emotions. A GFP playground builds a child‘s self-esteem and sense of self-worth by giving lots of opportunities for success through a variety of play experiences.
School-age children, contrary to much of the programming in schools, have not “outgrown” play. They play vigorously when given the chance. In fact, their play can take on much more risk-taking behavior than we may like at times. Giving school-agers opportunities to test their skills with a variety of challenging climbers sets the stage for success for these veterans of the playground.
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