A playground can be a wonderful resource for a community, school, or campground. It can become a place where children and their parents gather to get some fresh air and exercise. In many communities, the playground serves as a meeting place, a landmark, and a source of great job. However, not all playgrounds are created equal.

In choosing park playground equipment for your community, one of the most important factors to consider is the age of the children who will be using it. Preschoolers, for instance, have quite different playground needs from preteens. …

Over the past several decades, playground equipment companies have increasingly focused on creating playgrounds for specific age groups. In fact, there are even several regulatory bodies with standards for age-appropriate playgrounds. Kids are better able to enjoy playgrounds built with their age in mind, but enjoyment is far from the only benefit of age-appropriate playgrounds. Here are three other key ways in which kids benefit from these more specialized playsets.

Safety

Playgrounds designed with age in mind are much safer for kids in that particular age group. …

Doug Knotts, President of Premier Park & Play, a playground equipment supplier for schools, towns, campgrounds, apartments, daycare centers and other community spaces in New England, celebrates his 25th Anniversary in the playground equipment industry.

Doug earned a Master’s Degree in Recreation, Sports and Leisure Management from Northeastern University and has been an NPSI certified playground safety inspector since 1995.

Doug has a natural understanding of the things that would excite a child, and applies it toward the design of playgrounds. He takes a collaborative approach to playground design, engaging the community, staff and school kids. …

Designing a playground for early age kids involves more than choosing age-appropriate equipment. It’s important to design a whole play environment that helps them develop the skills they need and enjoy their playtime. Whether you are designing for daycare centers or preschools, keeping a few key developmental needs in mind can help ensure that your playground design provides both skills development and fun.

Interaction

Simple interactions with both equipment and environment can give kids experience with how the physical world works. Provide opportunities to push, pull, dig, build, roll, collect, or spill things. …

What are your favorite memories of childhood play? Chances are those memories happened outdoors and included a lot of nature-based activities like digging holes, chasing fireflies, building stick forts or sand castles, jumping in big piles of leaves, or just fooling around with dirt or water. Mud pies, anyone?

Is it possible to form those kinds of memories today? Childhood has changed. With all the screen time, the lack of access to green space, and the emphasis on direct instruction and increased academic focus in early childhood programs and preschools, it can be hard to squeeze in unstructured outdoor play…

Building a community playground is a big project and can seem a bit overwhelming on first thought. Does it seem too big for your group to take on? As with any large and complex task, it helps to break it down into the essential steps.

· Set goals. Decide up-front what you want to accomplish. That includes creating a mission statement and a financial framework that includes both the build out costs and the ongoing maintenance costs for your playground project. Things to consider when setting your goals are:

o Any special requirements for accessibility

o Environmental friendliness

o Theme

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When you design and build a playground, choosing the right surfacing is an important consideration. Are you looking for a playground surface that is ecofriendly and protects your children in case of a fall while also making a space that’s attractive to children? Consider recycled rubber.

It is estimated that Americans throw away about 290 million rubber tires per year. Twelve states, such as Connecticut, ban all scrap tires from landfills. Using mulch from recycled rubber keeps discarded tires out of the landfill. It takes about 80 tires to make one cubic yard of mulch so using it for playground…

Saving the planet and going green is what we aspire to do, and as parents, we want our children to learn to be environmentally friendly as well. What better way to do that than to build an eco-friendly playground for our kids?

Many playground equipment manufacturers such as Playmart, one of Premier Park & Play’s manufacturing partners, build play structures with recycled plastic materials such as milk jugs. A small park bench uses close to 500 milk jugs and a larger play set can use more than 70,000 milk jugs. See how much we can contribute to sustainability by using…